Effect of agarose on viability of seeded cells

Abstract

Agarose hydrogel is commonly used in tissue engineering studies to provide three dimensional environment for the cells to grow. This research was undertaken to study the effect of different concentrations of agarose gels on the viability of D11 insulin cells and thus evaluating agarose biodegradability and biocompatibility. The degradation of different concentrations of agarose 1, 2 and 3% in RPMI media were observed and the weight loss and degradation rate were measured for 14 days. To test agarose biocompatibility on D11 cells and optimize the seeding density, different concentrations of agarose (1, 2 and 3%) gel were seeded with 4 different seeding densities and the viability of the seeded cells were observed for 7 days (day 2, 4 and 7) by using MTT assay. This was done to see the effect of different agarose concentrations and different seeding densities on cells viability. Results for degradation study showed the degradation rate of agarose was relatively slow for all concentrations, and the weight loss in 1% agarose was the highest indicating that its degrading faster followed by 2% and 3% respectively. Results for MTT assay showed differences in cells viability with different agarose concentrations and different seeding densities. Cells viability found to be decreased at higher agarose concentrations, while lower agarose concentrations as 1% enhanced cell viability the best. Higher seeding densities as 1×106cell/ml found to be more suitable for seeding on agarose and showed the highest percentage viability (˜50%) at low agarose concentrations. This can be concluded that agarose hydrogel is suitable and a compatible material for 3 dimension culture of D11 cells and that by altering agarose concentration and seeding density cell proliferation in agarose can be controlled.