Radiation damage to a three-dimensional hydrogel model of the brain perivascular niche.

Unlabelled: Glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly aggressive and recurrent brain cancer characterized by diffuse metastasis at the tumor margins. Radiation therapy is a standard component of current treatment and offers potential for improved patient outcomes. While radiation therapy targets GBM cells in the tumor margins, it may also significantly damage adjacent non-cancerous tissues, leading to reduced quality of life and potentially creating a tumor-supportive microenvironment.

Matrix tropism influences endometriotic cell attachment patterns.

Due to the extended period for clinical diagnosis, the etiology of endometriotic lesion initiation is not well understood or characterized. Endometriotic lesions are most often found on pelvic tissues and organs, especially the ovaries. To investigate the role of tissue tropism on ovarian endometrioma initiation, we adapted a well-characterized polyacrylamide microarray system to investigate the role of tissue-specific extracellular matrix and adhesion motifs on endometriotic cell attachment, morphology, and size.

Influence of Hypoxia on a Biomaterial Model of the Bone Marrow Perivascular Niche.

Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) fate is shaped by distinct microenvironments termed niches within the bone marrow. Quiescence, expansion, and differentiation are directly and indirectly regulated by complex combinations of cell secretomes, cell-cell interactions, mechanical signals, and metabolic factors including oxygen tension. The perivascular environment in the bone marrow has been implicated in guiding HSC fate.

Granular hydrogels as brittle yield stress fluids.

While granular hydrogels are increasingly used in biomedical applications, methods to capture their rheological behavior generally consider shear-thinning and self-healing properties or produce ensemble metrics such as the dynamic moduli. Analytical approaches paired with common oscillatory shear tests can describe not only solid-like and fluid-like behavior of granular hydrogels but also transient characteristics inherent in yielding and unyielding processes. Combining oscillatory shear testing with consideration of Brittility (Bt) via the Kamani-Donley-Rogers (KDR) model, we show granular hydrogels behave as brittle yield stress fluids with complex transient rheology.

Hyaluronic Acid Influences Amino Acid Metabolism via Differential L-Type Amino Acid Transporter 1 Expression in the U87-Malignant Glioma Cell Line.

The Glioblastoma (GBM) tumor microenvironment is heterogeneous, complex, and is being increasingly understood as a significant contributor to tumor progression. In brain tumors, the extracellular matrix contains a large concentration of Hyaluronic acid (HA) that makes it important to study its role in cancer progression. In particular, abnormal accumulation of HA is observed in gliomas and is often associated with poor prognosis.