1. Hydroxyethyl chitosan hydrogels for enhancing breast cancer cell tumorigenesis.
- Author
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Hou, Guanghui, Sun, Tiantian, Qian, Junmin, Zhang, Yaping, Guo, Min, Xu, Weijun, Wang, Jinlei, and Suo, Aili
- Subjects
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BREAST cancer , *CHITOSAN , *CANCER cells , *CELL culture , *NEOPLASTIC cell transformation , *POLYSACCHARIDES - Abstract
Polysaccharide hydrogels are promising candidate matrices for recapitulating the characteristics of extracellular matrix (ECM) in breast tumors in terms of their structure and composition. Herein, to obtain an ECM-mimetic matrix, hydroxyethyl chitosan (HECS) hydrogels were prepared through Schiff-base crosslinking reaction using dialdehyde hyaluronic acid as crosslinker. The obtained HECS hydrogels displayed a highly porous structure, a stiffness comparable to that of breast tissue, and a fast water-absorption speed. The amount of crosslinker had great effects on the swelling and rheological behaviors of the HECS hydrogels. Preliminary results from in vitro biological assessments confirmed that MCF-7 cells incubated within HECS hydrogels preferred to grow into three-dimensional spheroids. Importantly, the cells displayed enhanced migrative capability and upregulated expression levels of MMP-2, TGF-β and VEGF in comparison to two-dimension cultured cells. Hence, the HECS hydrogels show great promise as a biomimetic ECM in constructing breast tumor models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
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