Glutathione-triggered formation of molecular hydrogels for 3D cell culture

The development of three dimensional (3D) scaffolds that are suitable for cell encapsulation and proliferation is highly important for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. We reported in this paper on several molecular hydrogels formed through glutathione (GSH) reduction, whose mechanical property and zeta potential could be regulated by concentration and structure of gelators in resulting gels, respectively. The hydrogels were characterized by several techniques including rheology, TEM and fluorescence. We found that, in our system, the mechanical property of hydrogels but not the zeta potential of self-assembled structures had big influences on mouse fibroblast 3T3 cells spreading and proliferation. Hydrogels with storage modulus (G′) of hundreds of pascals (Pa) were suitable for 3T3 cells spreading and proliferation. We believed that hydrogels reported in this study had big potential for applications in different fields, such as 3D cell culture and tissue engineering.