sepharose and glycyl-arginyl-glycyl-aspartyl-serine

Methods to reversibly control the chemical environment of hydrogels have application in three-dimensional cell culture to study cell proliferation, migration and differentiation in environments more representative of in vivo environments. Herein, we have developed a method to temporally control the chemical environment of agarose hydrogels through non-covalent attachment of peptide motifs. Streptavidin-GRGDS conjugates were immobilized in desthiobiotin-modified agarose hydrogels through the desthiobiotin-streptavidin interaction (K

Topics: Alginates; Biotin; Cell Culture Techniques; Cell Differentiation; Cell Movement; Cell Proliferation; Culture Media; Fluorescent Dyes; Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells; Humans; Hydrogels; Oligopeptides; Peptides; Sepharose; Streptavidin

Cell-cell interactions are critical to understanding functional tissues. A number of stem cell populations have been shown to receive key regulatory information from endothelial cells (ECs); however, the role of ECs in the retinal stem and progenitor cell (RSPC) niche has been largely unexplored. To gain greater insight into the role of ECs on RSPC fate, a three-dimensional (3D) co-culture model, incorporating cell-cell interactions, was designed by covalently-modifying agarose hydrogels with growth factors and cell-adhesive peptides in defined volumes. Therein ECs adopted tubular-like morphologies similar to those observed in vivo, but not observed in two-dimensional (2D) cultures. Unexpectedly, ECs inhibited proliferation and differentiation of RSPCs, revealing, for the first time, the possible role of ECs on RSPC fate. This 3D hydrogel scaffold provides a simple, reproducible and versatile method with which to answer biological questions related to the cellular microenvironment.

Topics: Animals; Cell Adhesion; Cell Aggregation; Cell Communication; Cell Differentiation; Cell Movement; Cell Proliferation; Coculture Techniques; Endothelial Cells; Hydrogels; Integrin alpha6beta1; Laminin; Mice; Oligopeptides; Retina; Sepharose; Stem Cell Niche; Stem Cells; Tissue Engineering; Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A