Avidin-functionalized Gellan Gum as Modular Hydrogel for 3D Cell Culture

Description

Conference oral presentation

Abstract Introduction

Hydrogels have for long been a promising class of materials for tissue engineering applications1,2. Essentially, hydrogels form a scaffold-like support structure for cells and provide an aqueous environment, which mimics natural tissues. Regenerative medicine exploits hydrogels for cell delivery, but they also allow research on cells for disease modelling and cell biology. Although most hydrogel materials are biocompatible, they are also biologically relatively inert.
To combat this situation, various approaches have been described in the literature to functionalize hydrogels with an abundance of bioactive molecules through the means of various chemical strategies. Direct covalent coupling strategies limit the functionalized polymer to one, relatively narrow target application. Indirect modification with proteins that can selectively bind certain compounds offers an alternative approach3. Due to its superior affinity and specificity, the avidin-biotin binding has been exploited for many diverse biochemical applications4. Hydrogel containing covalently coupled avidin would allow for the convenient and flexible modification with biotin-labelled compounds, for example the peptide sequences.

Here, we propose a modular hydrogel material that requires no further chemical functionalization steps. The base material is avidin-conjugated gellan gum (GG), which can be modified in situ through the addition of biotinylated compounds. GG is a polysaccharide, which has recently been proposed as a suitable tissue engineering material5,6. GG hydrogels have been used for 2D and 3D cell culture but satisfying cell response have not been achieved without functionalization.

Aikajakso	18 heinäk. 2018
Tapahtuman otsikko	International Society for Biomedical Polymers and Polymeric Biomaterials Conference
Tapahtuman tyyppi	Conference
Konferenssinumero	4
Sijainti	Krakow, PuolaNäytä kartalla
Tunnustuksen arvo	International