Abstract
Saliva production by salivary glands play a crucial role in oral health. The loss of salivary gland function could lead to xerostomia, a condition also known as dry mouth. Significant reduction in saliva production could lead to further complications such as difficulty in speech, mastication, and increased susceptibility to dental caries and oral infections and diseases. While some palliative treatments are available for xerostomia, there are no curative treatments to date. This study explores the use of Egg White Alginate (EWA), as an alternative scaffold to Matrigel® for culturing 3D salivary gland cells. A protocol for an optimized EWA was established by comparing cell viability using 1%, 2%, and 3% alginate solution. The normal salivary simian virus 40-immortalized acinar cell (NS-SV-AC) and the submandibular gland-human-1 (SMG-hu-1) cell lines were also used to compare the spheroid formation and cell viability properties of both scaffold biomaterials; cell viability was observed over 10 days using a Live–Dead Cell Assay. Cell viability and spheroid size in 2% EWA was significantly greater than 1% and 3%. It is evident that EWA can support salivary cell survivability as well as form larger spheroids when compared to cells grown in Matrigel®. However, further investigations are necessary as it is unclear if cultured cells were proliferating or aggregating.
Highlights
Salivary glands are characterized as exocrine saliva-secreting tissues that reside throughout the oral cavity
There was a significant difference in cell growth and survival, relative to cells grown on Egg White Alginate (EWA) composed of 1% or 3% alginate concentrations
We demonstrated that EWA is capable of maintaining two different salivary cell lines for 20 days
Summary
Salivary glands are characterized as exocrine saliva-secreting tissues that reside throughout the oral cavity. One branch of research that contributes toward the development of a curative treatment is biomaterial development, which include the scaffolds being used to culture cells in 3D Optimizing these scaffolds can result in cells, spheroids, or organoids grown with phenotypes and functions that more closely resemble their normal biological counterparts. Matrigel® is a hydrogel composed of extracellular proteins including collagen IV, laminin, fibronectin, entactin, and perlecan, and growth factors which are derived from Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm mouse sarcoma cells It is often considered as the gold standard in 3D cell culture research due to its ability to accommodate cell attachment, morphogenesis, proliferation, and organization [21,22]. The stiffness, elasticity, compressibility, viscoelasticity, degradation rate, and shape, among other physical properties can be manipulated [25] By combining these two biomaterials, it provides researchers with an extremely affordable and accessible alternative to culture cells in 3D. This pilot study aimed to establish a protocol for creating Egg White-Alginate and to explore the feasibility of using Egg White-Alginate as a biomaterial scaffold to culture salivary gland cells in 3D
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