Engineering stiff and tough protein-based hydrogels: Bridging the mechanical gap between muscle and cartilage

Protein hydrogels are often used to mimic biological load-bearing tissues due to their excellent biocompatibility. However, protein hydrogels are usually too soft to achieve the unique mechanical properties of high stiffness and toughness of articular cartilage. This preview introduces the strategies that use chain entanglement to enhance the stiffness for engineering biomedical hydrogels with high stiffness, toughness, and compression resistance.