The ability to adjust the pH of the peptide/cell precursors without inducing premature gelation significantly increased cell survival and provided longer working times, which enabled processing steps such as compositing, multi-well sample production, and long-term cell culture experiments. Cell metabolic activity, proliferation, and PSA production indicated that LNCaP cells cultured in bQ13 were equally or more viable than those grown in alternative 3D matrices. Immunostaining and spheroid morphological evaluation indicated that spheroids grown in bQ13 lacked polarity, a characteristic typical of cancer spheroids. Stiffness could be adjusted over a wide range. In ongoing work we hope to present, we are incorporating the expressed (3tail proteins and optimizing formulations that minimizes the incorporation of Matrigel, potentially arriving at an all-synthetic formulation.
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