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Fabrication of a tunable hydrogel membrane for constructing indirect cell coculture system
Author(s) -
Song Yizhe,
Zheng Guoshuang,
Zhang Demeng,
Lv Yan,
Li Na,
Wang Xiuli,
Yu Weiting,
Ma Xiaojun
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.43100
Subject(s) - fabrication , membrane , materials science , self healing hydrogels , nanotechnology , chemical engineering , composite material , polymer chemistry , chemistry , engineering , medicine , biochemistry , alternative medicine , pathology
In this study, an improved indirect cell coculture system was constructed by using a polyelectrolyte complex membrane generated by alginate (A) and chitosan (C). Methodologies of characterizing thickness and permeability of flat AC membrane were first established due to the importance of these two parameters in determining intercellular distance and degree of contact between cocultured cells. Compared to reaction time, both alginate concentration and molecular weight ( M w ) of chitosan play more dominant roles in determining the membrane thickness and diffusion coefficients. Moreover, cells in the alginate gel and on the AC membrane could maintain high cell viability. Thus, an improved indirect cell coculture system constructed by flat AC membrane was fabricated and characterized, which provides a robust tool to study the effect of intercellular distance and degree of contact between cocultured cells on cell–cell interactions. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133 , 43100.