Characterizing Viscoelastic Properties of Polyacrylamide Gels

Despite its common use in cell culture studies, polyacrylamide gel's mechanical properties remain unclear. To characterize this gel fully, atomic force microscopy, uniaxial testing, rheology, and ball indentation were used. The range of the elastic moduli was 1.9-7.5 kPa and 18.1-39.4 kPa, for 5%/0.025% and 8%/0.08% gel concentrations, respectively, and a Poisson's ratio of 0.45 was found. Future research utilizing polyacrylamide as a cell culture substrate should indicate how the gel was characterized and acknowledge the uncertainty in stiffness values