Authors: Daniel Abebayehu, Blaise N. Pfaff, Grace C. Bingham, Andrew E. Miller, Mathew Kibet, Surabhi Ghatti, Donald R. Griffin, Thomas H. Barker
Published: 2024-06-14
Source: Full article
Fibrosis-associated fibroblasts have been identified across various fibrotic disorders, but not in the context of biomaterials, fibrotic encapsulation, and the foreign body response. In other fibrotic disorders, a fibroblast subpopulation defined by Thy-1 loss is strongly correlated with fibrosis yet we do not know what promotes Thy-1 loss. We have previously shown that Thy-1 is an integrin regulator enabling normal fibroblast mechanosensing, and here, leveraging nonfibrotic microporous annealed particle (MAP) hydrogels versus classical fibrotic bulk hydrogels, we demonstrate that