A New Method to Rapidly Retrieve Encapsulated Cells from Alginate Hydrogels using Pyrophosphate

摘要

PPi would appear to be an effective reagent for the purpose of retrieving encapsulated cells from alginate hydrogels. Both the rate of de-gelling and viability of retrieved cells were enhanced compared to conventionally used reagents. A possible limitation of this technique is that PPi will tend to crystallise with Ca, though in our experiments this only occurred at prolonged times (hours).