A peptide hydrogel for efficient production of cell spheroids

A paper, recently published in Science China Materials, describes the development of a novel and promising peptide hydrogel for the production of cell spheroids in 3D culture. This study is led by Prof. Zhimou Yang and Prof. Quan Chen (College of Life Sciences in Nankai University), and Prof. Jianfeng Liu (Institute of Radiation Medicine, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences). Prof. Zhimou Yang, who has worked in peptide self-assembly biomaterials for over 15 years, designed the peptide hydrogel for cell spheroids production.

Prof. Yang comments, “Supramolecular hydrogels of self-assembling short peptides are promising for cell 3D culturing because they are biocompatible and are composed of nanofibers similar to the extracellular matrix. However, peptide hydrogels for cell spheroid production are rarely reported.”

The peptide that formed the hydrogel contained two parts: one is the self-assembling part that contains biotin groups and the other is the bioactive part for regulating cell adhesion and growth. Peptide fragments derived from laminin and an integrin-binding peptide are encoded into the peptide sequence of the bioactive part.

The hydrogel, formed by the supramolecular self-assembling of this peptide, has been termed “SupraGel” by the team. The team in Prof. Yang’s lab performed rheological measurements of SupraGel and found that it could transform into a solution by simply vigorously shaking by hand, and the resulting solution could form a hydrogel again after approximately 10 min. “These features are critical for incorporating cells and isolating cell spheroids.” Prof. Zhimou Yang says.

Yang’s team cultured several kinds of cancer cells in SupraGel. After 7 days of growth, each single cell divided into many cells and formed spheroids spontaneously. Then they collaborated with Prof. Quan Chen, who is an expert in cell biology, to test whether SupraGel was suitable for stem cell culturing and spheroid production.

The researchers found that intestinal stem cells (ISCs) could grow into spheroids after 15 days of cell culture in SupraGel. They also compared ISCs spheroids in both SupraGel and commercially available Matrigel and found that SupraGel helped to maintain the stemness of ISCs during the formation of the spheroids better than Matrigel did.

"We envision significant potential for SupraGel in cell spheroid preparation and a range of related applications, such as studying cellular complexities and screening drugs. " Prof. Zhimou Yang says.

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Reference:

Ai S, Li H, Zheng H et al. A SupraGel for efficient production of cell spheroids. Sci. China Mater. (2022)