Sliced Magnetic Polyacrylamide Hydrogel with Cell-Adhesive Microarray Interface: A Novel Multicellular Spheroid Culturing Platform

Cell-adhesive properties are of great significance to materials serving as extracellular matrix mimics. Appropriate cell-adhesive property of material interface can balance the cell-matrix interaction and cell-cell interaction and can promote cells to form 3D structures. Herein, a novel magnetic polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogel fabricated via combining magnetostatic field induced magnetic nanoparticles assembly and hydrogel gelation was applied as a multicellular spheroids culturing platform. When cultured on the cell-adhesive microarray interface of sliced magnetic hydrogel, normal and tumor cells from different cell lines could rapidly form multicellular spheroids spontaneously. Furthermore, cells which could only form loose cell aggregates in a classic 3D cell culture model (such as hanging drop system) were able to be promoted to form multicellular spheroids on this platform. In the light of its simplicity in fabricating as well as its effectiveness in promoting formation of multicellular spheroids which was considered as a prevailing tool in the study of the microenvironmental regulation of tumor cell physiology and therapeutic problems, this composite material holds promise in anticancer drugs or hyperthermia therapy evaluation in vitro in the future.