Synthetic Mucin Lubricates Interfaces at Multiple Length Scales by Stress-Induced Nanoscale Tribofilm Formation
Abstract
The tribological response of mucus is critical for organisms and in emerging applications and depends on the properties of mucins, understood to be the primary functional protein in mucus. The complexity of natural mucus makes correlating mucin structure to mucus function challenging. To address this, we study pure solutions of a synthetic mucin homopolymer, poly(Gal-Thr) 22 which mimics the structure of natural mucins’ glycosylated bottlebrush domains. This permits directly correlating specific nanostructured molecular features with lubricity. For a macroscale PDMS–SiO 2 contact, the boundary friction coefficient, μ, is reduced from ∼1 in pure water to
Fields of Study & Subjects
Polymer Surface Interaction Studies
Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications
Glycosylation and Glycoproteins Research
Publication details
- Journal / source
- ACS Applied Nano Materials
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 3155–3171
- Publication date
- 10 February 2026
- Language
- EN