Development of a Biomimetic Chondroitin Sulfate-modified Hydrogel to Enhance the Metastasis of Tumor Cells

Tumor metastasis with resistance to anticancer therapies is the main cause of death in cancer patients. It is necessary to develop reliable tumor metastasis models that can closely recapitulate the pathophysiological features of the native tumor tissue. In this study, chondroitin sulfate (CS)-modified alginate hydrogel beads (ALG-CS) are developed to mimic the in vivo tumor microenvironment with an abnormally increased expression of CS for the promotion of tumor cell metastasis. The modification mechanism of CS on alginate hydrogel is due to the cross-linking between CS and alginate molecules via coordination of calcium ions, which enables ALG-CS to possess significantly different physical characteristics than the traditional alginate beads (ALG). And quantum chemistry calculations show that in addition to the traditional egg-box structure, novel asymmetric egg-box-like structures based on the interaction between these two kinds of polymers are also formed within ALG-CS. Moreover, tumor cell metastasis is significantly enhanced in ALG-CS compared with that in ALG, as confirmed by the increased expression of MMP genes and proteins and greater in vitro invasion ability. Therefore, ALG-CS could be a convenient and effective 3D biomimetic scaffold that would be used to construct standardized tumor metastasis models for tumor research and anticancer drug screening.