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. 2024 Dec 28;43:334. doi: 10.1186/s13046-024-03258-7

Fig. 4.

Fig. 4

Left panel: Schematic of patient-derived pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) organoid grown within an engineered matrix (termed a HELP hydrogel). Changing the number of chemical crosslinks between the biopolymers within the HELP hydrogel creates matrices with low, medium, and high stiffness. Right panel: PDAC organoids proliferated and grew similarly well within a commercially available Cultrex matrix or the engineered HELP hydrogels of Low, Medium, and High stiffness. Organoids grown in stiffer matrices (HELP High) became less sensitive to the chemotherapy gemcitabine, as shown by less immunostaining for the apoptosis marker cleaved caspase 3. Reprinted with permission (The figure is a modified version of a Fig. 1 in reference 16)