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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Sep 1.
Published in final edited form as: Biomaterials. 2019 May 10;215:119177. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2019.04.022

Fig. 1: Macromer Synthesis & Hydrogel Photopolymerization.

Fig. 1:

(A) [1] Acrylate-PEG-SVA (PEG-SVA) was reacted with the matrix metalloproteinase cleavable peptide sequence, [2] GGGPQGIWGQGK (PQ), to yield the [3] PEG-PQ macromer consisting of the PQ sequence flanked by two PEG chains, each containing a terminal acrylate group. (B) A similar reaction was performed with the integrin ligating peptide sequence, [4] RGDS, to yield the [5] PEG-RGDS macromer with one PEG chain with a terminal acrylate group. (C) [3] PEG-PQ (5% w/v) and [5] PEG-RGDS (0-10 mM) were photocrosslinked with the comonomer n-vinyl pyrrolidinone (NVP) (0.0-18.7 mM) via photoinitiation of lithium phenyl-2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl phosphinate (LAP) to generate 3 μL hydrogel droplets with a diameter of ~1.5 mm and height of ~1 mm (Scale bar = 1 mm). MDA-MB-231 cells were encapsulated at a density of 10×106 cells/mL and the hydrogels transferred to media containing wells for culture and subsequent analysis.