IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-56422-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tailorable biosensors for real-time monitoring of stress distribution in soft biomaterials and living tissues

Author

Listed:
  • Fenghou Yuan

    (Dalian University of Technology)

  • Huitang Qi

    (Dalian University of Technology)

  • Binghui Song

    (Dalian University of Technology)

  • Yuntian Cui

    (Dalian University of Technology)

  • Junsheng Zhang

    (Ningxia University)

  • Huan Liu

    (Dalian University of Technology)

  • Bo Liu

    (Dalian University of Technology)

  • Hai Lei

    (Zhejiang University)

  • Tian Liu

    (Dalian University of Technology)

Abstract

Visualizing mechanical stress distribution in soft and live biomaterials is essential for understanding biological processes and improving material design. However, it remains challenging due to their complexity, dynamic nature, and sensitivity requirements, necessitating innovative techniques. Since polysaccharides are common in various biomaterials, a biosensor integrating a Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based tension sensor module and carbohydrate-binding modules (FTSM-CBM) has been designed for real-time monitoring of the stress distribution of these biomaterials. By simple dripping or soaking, FTSM-CBM enables fast, reproducible and semiquantitative detection of both 2D and 3D stress distributions in polysaccharide-based hydrogels. Additionally, it provides valuable information such as microstructure hints and fracture site warnings. FTSM-CBM can also monitor the locomotion of maggots, which is not feasible with most existing techniques. Furthermore, by changing the CBM, FTSM-CBM can be expanded for various polysaccharide-based biomaterials. This study provides a powerful tool that may promote related research in life and materials science.

Suggested Citation

  • Fenghou Yuan & Huitang Qi & Binghui Song & Yuntian Cui & Junsheng Zhang & Huan Liu & Bo Liu & Hai Lei & Tian Liu, 2025. "Tailorable biosensors for real-time monitoring of stress distribution in soft biomaterials and living tissues," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56422-8
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56422-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56422-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-56422-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeong-Yun Sun & Xuanhe Zhao & Widusha R. K. Illeperuma & Ovijit Chaudhuri & Kyu Hwan Oh & David J. Mooney & Joost J. Vlassak & Zhigang Suo, 2012. "Highly stretchable and tough hydrogels," Nature, Nature, vol. 489(7414), pages 133-136, September.
    2. Janghyun Yoo & Jae-Yeol Kim & John M. Louis & Irina V. Gopich & Hoi Sung Chung, 2020. "Fast three-color single-molecule FRET using statistical inference," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    3. Lei Zhang & Lu Chen & Siheng Wang & Shanshan Wang & Dan Wang & Le Yu & Xu Xu & He Liu & Chaoji Chen, 2024. "Cellulose nanofiber-mediated manifold dynamic synergy enabling adhesive and photo-detachable hydrogel for self-powered E-skin," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    4. Hai Lei & Quan Ma & Wenfei Li & Jing Wen & Haibo Ma & Meng Qin & Wei Wang & Yi Cao, 2021. "An ester bond underlies the mechanical strength of a pathogen surface protein," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Alexander Gansen & Suren Felekyan & Ralf Kühnemuth & Kathrin Lehmann & Katalin Tóth & Claus A. M. Seidel & Jörg Langowski, 2018. "High precision FRET studies reveal reversible transitions in nucleosomes between microseconds and minutes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-13, December.
    6. Wei Chen & Peng Cao & Yuansheng Liu & Ailing Yu & Dong Wang & Lei Chen & Rajamanikandan Sundarraj & Zhiguang Yuchi & Yong Gong & Hans Merzendorfer & Qing Yang, 2022. "Structural basis for directional chitin biosynthesis," Nature, Nature, vol. 610(7931), pages 402-408, October.
    7. Carsten Grashoff & Brenton D. Hoffman & Michael D. Brenner & Ruobo Zhou & Maddy Parsons & Michael T. Yang & Mark A. McLean & Stephen G. Sligar & Christopher S. Chen & Taekjip Ha & Martin A. Schwartz, 2010. "Measuring mechanical tension across vinculin reveals regulation of focal adhesion dynamics," Nature, Nature, vol. 466(7303), pages 263-266, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yihui Gu & Chao Xu & Yilin Wang & Jing Luo & Dongsheng Shi & Wenjuan Wu & Lu Chen & Yongcan Jin & Bo Jiang & Chaoji Chen, 2025. "Compressible, anti-fatigue, extreme environment adaptable, and biocompatible supramolecular organohydrogel enabled by lignosulfonate triggered noncovalent network," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Krishna C. Suddala & Janghyun Yoo & Lixin Fan & Xiaobing Zuo & Yun-Xing Wang & Hoi Sung Chung & Jinwei Zhang, 2023. "Direct observation of tRNA-chaperoned folding of a dynamic mRNA ensemble," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-16, December.
    3. Guangyu Bao & Qiman Gao & Massimo Cau & Nabil Ali-Mohamad & Mitchell Strong & Shuaibing Jiang & Zhen Yang & Amin Valiei & Zhenwei Ma & Marco Amabili & Zu-Hua Gao & Luc Mongeau & Christian Kastrup & Ji, 2022. "Liquid-infused microstructured bioadhesives halt non-compressible hemorrhage," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, December.
    4. László Imre & Péter Nánási & Ibtissem Benhamza & Kata Nóra Enyedi & Gábor Mocsár & Rosevalentine Bosire & Éva Hegedüs & Erfaneh Firouzi Niaki & Ágota Csóti & Zsuzsanna Darula & Éva Csősz & Szilárd Pól, 2024. "Epigenetic modulation via the C-terminal tail of H2A.Z," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-21, December.
    5. Dongliang Fan & Xi Yuan & Wenyu Wu & Renjie Zhu & Xin Yang & Yuxuan Liao & Yunteng Ma & Chufan Xiao & Cheng Chen & Changyue Liu & Hongqiang Wang & Peiwu Qin, 2022. "Self-shrinking soft demoulding for complex high-aspect-ratio microchannels," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Jiankai Wei & Wei Zhang & An Jiang & Hongzhe Peng & Quanyong Zhang & Yuting Li & Jianqing Bi & Linting Wang & Penghui Liu & Jing Wang & Yonghang Ge & Liya Zhang & Haiyan Yu & Lei Li & Shi Wang & Liang, 2024. "Temporospatial hierarchy and allele-specific expression of zygotic genome activation revealed by distant interspecific urochordate hybrids," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    7. Huimin He & Xi Wei & Bin Yang & Hongzhen Liu & Mingze Sun & Yanran Li & Aixin Yan & Chuyang Y. Tang & Yuan Lin & Lizhi Xu, 2022. "Ultrastrong and multifunctional aerogels with hyperconnective network of composite polymeric nanofibers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, December.
    8. Aruã Clayton Da Silva & Junzhi Wang & Ivan Rusev Minev, 2022. "Electro-assisted printing of soft hydrogels via controlled electrochemical reactions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    9. Lili Liu & Ding Zhang & Peijia Bai & Yanjie Fang & Jiaqi Guo & Qi Li & Rujun Ma, 2025. "Fatigue-resistant and super-tough thermocells," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, December.
    10. Feipeng Chen & Xiufeng Li & Yafeng Yu & Qingchuan Li & Haisong Lin & Lizhi Xu & Ho Cheung Shum, 2023. "Phase-separation facilitated one-step fabrication of multiscale heterogeneous two-aqueous-phase gel," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    11. Ruixin Zhu & Dandan Zhu & Zhen Zheng & Xinling Wang, 2024. "Tough double network hydrogels with rapid self-reinforcement and low hysteresis based on highly entangled networks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    12. Hong Wang & Rayan Said & Clémence Nguyen-Vigouroux & Véronique Henriot & Peter Gebhardt & Julien Pernier & Robert Grosse & Christophe Le Clainche, 2024. "Talin and vinculin combine their activities to trigger actin assembly," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-15, December.
    13. Qirui Feng & Yu Luo & Mu Liang & Yingui Cao & LingShuang Wang & Can Liu & Xiaoyong Zhang & Lanyang Ren & Yongfeng Wang & Daojie Wang & Yantao Zhu & Yanfeng Zhang & Bo Xiao & Nannan Li, 2025. "Rhizobacteria protective hydrogel to promote plant growth and adaption to acidic soil," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-16, December.
    14. Haoqing Yang & Tengxiao Liu & Lihua Jin & Yu Huang & Xiangfeng Duan & Hongtao Sun, 2024. "Tailoring smart hydrogels through manipulation of heterogeneous subdomains," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    15. Zhengyu Xu & Jiajun Lu & Di Lu & Yiran Li & Hai Lei & Bin Chen & Wenfei Li & Bin Xue & Yi Cao & Wei Wang, 2024. "Rapidly damping hydrogels engineered through molecular friction," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    16. Cui, Shuang & Ahn, Chihyung & Wingert, Matthew C. & Leung, David & Cai, Shengqiang & Chen, Renkun, 2016. "Bio-inspired effective and regenerable building cooling using tough hydrogels," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 332-339.
    17. Jaroslaw Sedzicki & Dongchun Ni & Frank Lehmann & Henning Stahlberg & Christoph Dehio, 2024. "Structure-function analysis of the cyclic β-1,2-glucan synthase from Agrobacterium tumefaciens," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    18. Yan Zhang & Yafei Wang & Ying Guan & Yongjun Zhang, 2022. "Peptide-enhanced tough, resilient and adhesive eutectogels for highly reliable strain/pressure sensing under extreme conditions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    19. Yuan Tian & Zhihao Wang & Shuiyan Cao & Dong Liu & Yukun Zhang & Chong Chen & Zhiwen Jiang & Jun Ma & Yunlong Wang, 2024. "Connective tissue inspired elastomer-based hydrogel for artificial skin via radiation-indued penetrating polymerization," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    20. Jing Chen & Yiyang Gao & Lei Shi & Wei Yu & Zongjie Sun & Yifan Zhou & Shuang Liu & Heng Mao & Dongyang Zhang & Tongqing Lu & Quan Chen & Demei Yu & Shujiang Ding, 2022. "Phase-locked constructing dynamic supramolecular ionic conductive elastomers with superior toughness, autonomous self-healing and recyclability," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56422-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.