RGD anchored C2-benzene based PEG-like hydrogels as scaffolds for two and three dimensional cell cultures
Xiao-Qiu Dou1, Ping Li, Di Zhang
1State Key Lab of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, China. clfeng@sjtu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Designing new types of cell scaffolds to resist protein adsorption and promote cell adhesion is becoming very important in the field of tissue engineering. Herein, by coupling ethylene glycol (EG) monomers and Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) onto C2-benzene cores, a family of PEG-like low molecular weight gelators (LMWGs) functionalized with RGD is reported. Imaging and spectroscopic analysis by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), and Circular Dichroism (CD) spectroscopy confirm that the functionalized LMWGs can self-assemble into nanofibrous hydrogels. The RGD functionalized nano-scaffolds were observed to overcome non-specific protein adsorption and promote adhesion of encapsulated cells through specific RGD-integrin binding. The PEG-like gelators may offer an effective model scaffold for cell cultures that generates specific cell-scaffold interactions with minimal non-specific protein adsorption and addresses some limitations of covalent polymeric scaffolds at the same time.
