Figure 5.

Analysis of cell proliferation, formation of rosettes in 3D hydrogels and expression of the mesenchymal marker vimentin. (a,b) First rows: cell proliferation was assessed by Ki67 marker confirming that the cells maintained their capacity to amplify even after 14 days of culture in both non-bioprintable (a) and bioprintable hydrogels (b). (a,b) Second rows: mesenchymal marker Vimentin, the expression of which correlates with the occurrence of tumorigenesis and increased metastatic capacity of tumor cells that was validated in mono- and co-cultures. In both types of hydrogels, we observed extensive positivity for this protein marker. (c) Relative quantification of average number of proliferating cells was measured for each rosette and presented as means ± SD. (d) Relative number of rosettes counted per mm² was calculated to evaluate possible differences between two types of hydrogels tested in our study. The highest number of formed rosettes was found in SH-SY5Y/MSC co-cultured in non-bioprintable hydrogels. Statistical analysis was performed with Student’s t-test and significance was defined as * p < 0.05.