Viscoelastic High-Molecular-Weight Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogels Support Rapid Glioblastoma Cell Invasion with Leader-Follower Dynamics.

ABSTRACT: Hyaluronic acid (HA), the primary component of brain extracellular matrix, is increasingly used to model neuropathological processes, including glioblastoma (GBM) tumor invasion. While elastic hydrogels based on crosslinked low-molecular-weight (LMW) HA are widely exploited for this purpose and have proven valuable for discovery and screening, brain tissue is both viscoelastic and rich in high-MW (HMW) HA, and it remains unclear how these differences influence invasion. To address this question, hydrogels comprised of either HMW (1.5 MDa) or LMW (60 kDa) HA are introduced, characterized, and applied in GBM invasion studies. Unlike LMW HA hydrogels, HMW HA hydrogels relax stresses quickly, to a similar extent as brain tissue, and to a greater extent than many conventional HA-based scaffolds

SUBMITTER: Carvalho EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11637900 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature