ABSTRACT
The crosslinked and water-imbibing polymeric network of synthetic and biomimetic hydrogels are increasingly used for modeling diseases in vitro and for regenerative medicine applications. Hydrogels are particularly suitable for investigating the influence of extracellular milieu on cell fate because the components of a biomimetic hydrogel can be precisely engineered. The mesh size of hydrogels is on the order of tens of micrometers, a scale much smaller than the size of a cell but larger than most of the growth factors, cytokines, chemokines. Hence, the accessibility of encapsulated cells to these small molecular weight proteins are not significantly hindered. The high water content and good permeability of a hydrogel allow facile nutrient-waste exchange, while the crosslinked polymeric network gives rise to tunable elasticity and easy tethering of bioactive motifs for supporting cell survival and function in 3D. The topics included in this chapter include the design criteria in preparing hydrogels (e.g., transport properties, cell-matrix interactions, and matrix mechanics), as well as examples of synthetic and dynamic hydrogels suitable for 3D cell culture.
