Hydrogels have been extensively used in the field of biomedical applications, offering customizable natural, synthetic or hybrid materials, particularly relevant in the field of tissue engineering. In the bioelectronics discipline, hydrogels are promising mainly as sensing platforms with or without encapsulated cells, showing great potential in healthcare and medicine. However, to date there is little data in the literature which characterizes the electrical properties of tissue engineering materials which are relevant to bioelectronics. In this work, we present electrical characterization of alginate hydrogels, a natural polysaccharide, using a four-probe method similar to electrical impedance spectroscopy. The acquired conductance data show distinct frequency-dependent features that change as a function of alginate and crosslinker concentration reflecting ion kinetics inside the measured sample. Furthermore, the presence of NIH 3T3 fibroblasts encapsulated in the hydrogels matrix was found to alter the artificial tissue's electrical properties. The method used provides valuable insight to the frequency-dependent electrical response of the resulting systems. It is hoped that the outcome of this research will be of use in the development of cell/electronic interfaces, possibly toward diagnostic biosensors and therapeutic bioelectronics.

中文翻译：

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海藻酸盐水凝胶的电导率。


水凝胶已广泛应用于生物医学应用领域，提供可定制的天然、合成或混合材料，特别是在组织工程领域。在生物电子学领域，水凝胶主要作为有或没有封装细胞的传感平台，在医疗保健和医学方面显示出巨大的潜力。然而，迄今为止，文献中很少有数据描述与生物电子学相关的组织工程材料的电特性。在这项工作中，我们使用类似于电阻抗光谱的四探针方法对藻酸盐水凝胶（一种天然多糖）进行电学表征。获得的电导数据显示出明显的频率相关特征，这些特征随着藻酸盐和交联剂浓度的函数而变化，反映了测量样品内的离子动力学。此外，封装在水凝胶基质中的 NIH 3T3 成纤维细胞的存在被发现可以改变人造组织的电特性。所使用的方法为所得系统的频率相关电响应提供了有价值的见解。希望这项研究的成果将用于细胞/电子接口的开发，可能用于诊断生物传感器和治疗生物电子学。