DOI

https://doi.org/10.25772/J1H6-DJ93

Defense Date

2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Engineering

First Advisor

Dr. XUEJUN WEN

Abstract

The recreation of the complicated tissue microenvironment is essential to reduce the gap between in vitro and in vivo research. Polysaccharide-based hydrogels form excellent scaffolds to allow for three-dimensional cell culture owing to the favorable properties such as capability to absorb large amount of water when immersed in biological fluids, ability to form “smart hydrogels” by being shear-thinning and thixotropic, and eliciting minimum immunological response from the host. In this study, the biodegradable shear-thinning polysaccharide, gellan-gum based hydrogel was investigated for the conditions and concentrations in which it can be applied for the adhesion, propagation and assembly of different mammalian cell types in an unmodified state, at physiological conditions of temperature. Cell studies, to show successful propagation and assembly into three-dimensional structures, were performed in the range of hydrogels which were deemed to be optimum for cell culture and the cell types were chosen to represent each embryonic germ layer, i.e., human neural stem cells for ectoderm, human brain microvasculature cells for mesoderm, and murine β-cells for endoderm, along with a pluripotent cell line of human induced pluripotent stem cells, derived from human foreskin fibroblasts. Three-dimensional cell organoid models, to allow for gellan gum based bioprinting, were also developed using human induced pluripotent stem cells and human neural stem cells.

Rights

© The Author

Is Part Of

VCU University Archives

Is Part Of

VCU Theses and Dissertations

Date of Submission

5-7-2015

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