Influence of the Viscoelastic Behaviour of Alginate-based Bioinks in the Migration of Tumoral Pancreatic Cells”

Pancreatic cancer is considered to be one of the most lethal types of cancer, presenting a 90% of mortality of its total incidence each year. Study of the biological and physical cues driving collective cell migration and subsequent cancer metastasis is still a major challenge that need to be understood. The main objective of this project would be to create three-dimensional hydrogel constructs based on sodium alginate (S.A.), allowing the study of pancreatic tumoral cells (PANC-1) migration. Three alginate-based bioinks with different viscoelastic properties have been prepared and PANC-1 collective cell migration was analyzed. Alginate inks have been characterized and printability was optimized by FT-IR and rheology analysis. For the migration studies, the bioinks were placed in transwells cell wells with no proliferation medium. Migrated cells were counted after 48 hours from the bottom of the wells using a Coulter analyzer. Fluorescent PAULA Cell Imager was used to analyze the live/death ratio of the cells. Printability tests suggest the possibility for these inks to be further translated to 3D bioprinting techniques. Fluorescence analysis has shown the influence of the crosslinker in the survival rate of the cells. Then, migration percentage of PANC-1 cells in alginate bioinks appears to be favoured in hydrogels presenting higher values for their loss tangent.