Open AccessA Protein-Based Hydrogel for In Vitro Expansion of Mesenchymal Stem Cells
Author(s) -
Jingyu Wang,
Jinxiu Zhang,
Xiaoli Zhang,
Hao Zhou
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0075727
Subject(s) - self healing hydrogels , mesenchymal stem cell , scaffold , in vitro , tissue engineering , microbiology and biotechnology , stem cell , homogeneous , cell culture , chemistry , cell , biomedical engineering , biophysics , biology , biochemistry , medicine , mathematics , genetics , organic chemistry , combinatorics
Hydrogels are widely used as scaffolds in tissue engineering because they can provide excellent environments for bioactive components including growth factors and cells. We reported in this study on a physical hydrogel formed by a specific protein-peptide interaction, which could be used for the three dimensional (3D) cell culture of murine mesenchymal stem cells (mMSC). The mMSC kept dividing during the 7-day culture period and the metabolic-active cell number at day 7 was 359% more than that at day 1. This kind of physical hydrogel could be converted to a homogeneous solution by firstly adding an equal volume of culture medium and then pipeting for several times. Therefore, mMSC post culture could be easily separated from cell-gel constructs. We believed that the protein-based hydrogel system in this study could be developed into a promising scaffold for in vitro expansion of stem cells and cell therapy. This work would be in the general interests of researchers in the fields of biomaterials and supramolecular chemistry.