Janus Nanocomposite Hydrogels for Chirality-Dependent Cell Adhesion and Migration

Recently, there has been much interest in the chirality-dependent cell affinity to enantiomorphous nanomaterials (NMs), since, at the nanoscale level, enantiomers of (bio)­molecules have different effects on cell behaviors. In this respect, this study used enantiomorphous NMs with which to generate the Janus nanocomposite (NC) hydrogels as multifunctional biomaterials for studying chirality-dependent cell adhesion and cell migration. These Janus NC hydrogels possess two enantiomorphous NC hydrogels, in which the different halves of the hydrogel contain the opposite enantiomers of a biopolymer functionalized nanomaterials. Thus, the enantiomers contact each other only at the midline of the hydrogel but are otherwise separated, yet they are present in the same system. This advanced system allows us to simultaneously study the impact that each enantiomer of a biopolymer has on cell behavior under the same reaction conditions, at the same time, and using only a single biomaterial. Our results show that cells have higher affinity for and migrate toward the part of the Janus NC hydrogel containing the biopolymer enantiomer that the cells prefer.