Novel calcium alginate poly(ethylene glycol) hybrid microspheres (Ca-alg-PEG) were developed and evaluated as potentially suitable materials for cell microencapsulation. Grafting 5-13% of the backbone units of sodium alginate (Na-alg) with α-amine-ω-thiol PEG maintained the gelling capacity in presence of calcium ions, while thiol end groups allowed for preparing chemically crosslinked hydrogel via spontaneous disulfide bond formation. The combination of these two gelling mechanisms yielded Ca-alg-PEG. Human hepatocellular carcinoma cells (Huh-7) were encapsulated in Ca-alg-PEG and calcium alginate beads (Ca-alg), and cultured for 2 weeks under agitation conditions. Immediately after completion of the microencapsulation, the cell viability was 60% and similar in Ca-alg-PEG and Ca-alg. The proliferation of Huh-7 encapsulated in Ca-alg-PEG was slightly higher than in Ca-alg. Accelerated proliferation after 2 weeks was observed for the encapsulation in Ca-alg-PEG. The production of albumin confirmed the functionality of the encapsulated Huh-7 cells. The study confirms the suitability of Ca-alg-PEG and the one-step technology for cell microencapsulation.
Three-dimensional (3D) culture systems have been introduced to provide cells with a biomimetic environment that is similar to in vivo conditions. Among the polymeric molecules available, sodium-alginate (Na-alg) salt is a material that is currently employed in different areas of drug delivery and tissue engineering, because it offers biocompatibility and optimal chemical properties, and its gelation with calcium chloride provides calcium-alginate (Ca-alg) scaffolds with mechanical stability and relative permeability. In this work, four different preparations of Ca-alg beads with varying Na-alg viscosity and concentration were used for a human hepatoma cell line (Huh-7) encapsulation. The effects of Ca-alg bead preparation on structural cell organization, liver-specific functions, and the expression of specific receptors implicated in hepatotropic virus permissivity were evaluated. Hepatic cells were cultured in 500 μm diameter Ca-alg beads for 7 days under dynamic conditions. For all culture systems, cell viability reached almost 100% at day 7. Cell proliferation was concomitantly followed by hepatocyte organization in aggregates, which adopted two different morphologies (spheroid aggregates or multicellular channel-like structures), depending on Ca-alg bead preparation. These cellular organizations established a real 3D hepatocyte architecture with cell polarity, cell junctions, and abundant bile canaliculi possessing microvillus-lined channels. The functionality of these 3D cultures was confirmed by the production of albumin and the exhibition of CYP1A activity over culture time, which were variable, according to Ca-alg bead condition. The expression of specific receptors of hepatitis C virus by Huh-7 cells suggests encouraging data for the further development of a new viral culture system in Ca-alg beads. In summary, this 3D hepatic cell culture represents a promising physiologically relevant system for further in vitro studies and demonstrates that an adequate encapsulation condition can be selected for each target application in liver tissue engineering, specifically in viral studies.
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