Table 2.

ECM-based matrices to induce dormancy

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

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