Skip to main content

Table 2 ECM-based matrices to induce dormancy

From: Engineered In Vitro Models of Tumor Dormancy and Reactivation

Biomaterial/ECM

Characteristics

Mechanism Inducing Dormancy

Collagen/Gelatin [89]

Naturally occurring animal-derived biopolymer with collagen/gelatin backbone crosslinked with transglutaminase

Increased stiffness resulting from increased crosslinking density of gelatin precursor

Agarose [91, 93]

Plant-derived biopolymer physically crosslinked at ambient temperature

Mechanical stress arising from a confining, non-adhesive matrix

Matrigel [94]

Mouse-tumor derived matrix consisting of collagen, laminin, elastin and growth factors amongst other components

Physical confinement in a 3D matrix

Fibrin [100, 101]

Naturally occurring biopolymer in blood obtained via crosslinking of fibrinogen with thrombin

Matrix stiffness

PEG [90]

Synthetic bio-inert polymer that can be chemically and mechanically tuned

Non-degradability and physical confinement

Silica-PEG [88]

Silicate network gel formed via hydrolysis of silicon alkoxide and condensation reaction to form a porous silica network, with PEG porogen and silica nanoparticles

Physical confinement in a non-degradable matrix

Collagen-PEG IPN [87]

Double crosslinked network of collagen and PEG with varying PEG concentrations

Physical confinement in an increasingly non-degradable matrix

PEG-protein and PEG-peptide blends [92, 105]

Covalent coupling of PEG with proteins (fibrinogen) or ECM-mimetic peptides (RGDS)

Controlled cell-matrix interactions

  1. Abbreviations: 3D Three-dimensional, ECM Extracellular matrix, IPN Interpenetrating network, PEG Poly(ethylene glycol);