Cell culture is a widely used application in which significant cell responses are obtained for different purposes like biomaterial and drug testing. However, in conventional cell culture approaches cells are grown 2 dimensionally on solid surfaces of plates which are not similar to native environments of the cells. Therefore cells grown in 2D surfaces have limited capability to mimic cells in living tissues. In order to culture cells 3 dimensionally(3D) and to better simulate the native cell environment of living tissues, different methods have been developed. One of the 3D cell culturing methods is culturing cells inside the hydrogels. Hydrogels are structures which bear high amount of water between the polymer chains. High water content of hydrogels enable to mimic extracellular matrix in natural tissues which also contains high amount of water.<br/>Animal derived collagen and matrigel are among the commonly used polymers for hydrogel construction for 3D cell culturing. However, animal derived components have several handicaps like possibility of pathogen transfer and risk of causing immunological reactions in vivo. These risks put an obstacle of utilization of cell carrying hydrogels as an implant in regenerative medicine purposes. Therefore alternative 3D cell culturing methods which are safe, easy to apply, cost effective and effectively mimicking the extracellular matrix of the native cell environment is needed to be developed. Plant based polymers used in several studies for cell encapsulating and 3D cell culturing. Nonetheless, the biopolymers have not proper active groups for cell attachment, as a result in previously performed studies it has been modified and functionalized via different chemical reactions which means extra time, cost and labor. By eliminating the necessity of these modifications, a quick, safe and cheap method of culturing cells 3D in hydrogels is proposed in our study. This method depends on forming hydrogels via non-covalent interaction of negatively charged groups present on biopolymer structure and positively charged amino acids found in peptide amphiphiles in aqueous environment without the need of any additional step. This hydrogel mimics the natural ECM with its protein (peptide), biopolymer and water content.<br/>In addition to develop a novel way of 3D cell culturing, our study can also offer new ideas for usage of formed hydrogels in regenerative medicine as a biocompatible and cheap implants.

Developing a new and simple 3 dimensional cell culture system with hydrogels formed with plant biopolymer and peptide

ACS Fall 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.