Figure 2.

Viability, total protein content, albumin and urea production of hepatocytes encapsulated in alginate microbeads (MB) or microdisks (MD), containing 44 mM (MD1), or 52 mM (MD2) of CaCO3. (A) Cell viability measured by calcein-AM assay and expressed as % over baseline value at day 0. Cells were released from the alginate by incubation of microbeads/microdisks with 50 mM EDTA. (B) Total protein content was assessed after alginate microbeads/microdisks depolymerization as above. (C) Albumin synthesis was measured by ELISA from microdisk/microbead supernatants. (D) Urea production measured on disk/bead supernatants following incubation with 5 mM ammonium chloride for 6 h. N = 3. Data represent mean ± SD. *p < 0.05; **p ≤ 0.01; ***p ≤ 0.001.