Fig. 6.

Bi-phasic cell-laden acrydite-aptamer-functionalized hydrogels generate selectively guided cell responses on day3. The maximum projection confocal images of the HUVECs and MSCs, co-cultured within VEGF₁₆₅ loaded (A) control-aptamer- and (B) acrydite-aptamer-functionalized bi-phasic hydrogels. For the ease of understanding, each bi-phasic hydrogel was categorized into two regions; aptamer side and GelMA side where the white dashed line indicates the interface. The cells were stained with cytoskeletal F-actin Phalloidin (green) and Hoechst (blue). The scale bar is 100 μm. Quantification of the individual cell area plotted against the distance from the interface within the (A) control-aptamer- and (B) acrydite-aptamer-functionalized bi-phasic hydrogels. The quantification was performed using ImageJ software, where values are represented in scatter plot with individual data points along with overall mean ± S.D. The calculations were performed with three technical replicates, n = 3. The statistical significance between aptamer and GelMA sides were calculated using unpaired two-tailed t-test with Welch's correction where ***p = 0.0004, ****p < 0.0001 and ns stands for not significant.