Vitamin B2 and Blue Light Power a New 'Plug-and-Play' Platform for Building Lab Tissue Models

Researchers at Tampere University in Finland have developed a hydrogel platform designed to make it easier to build customized biomaterials for tissue engineering, disease modeling, drug discovery and regenerative medicine. Hydrogels are water-rich materials widely used to mimic the extracellular matrix, the natural environment surrounding cells in the body, but existing methods often require multiple chemical modification steps or conditions that limit biological function, the researchers say.

The new platform is based on gallic acid, a naturally occurring antioxidant found in plants, fruits and tea leaves. When gallic acid-modified biopolymers are exposed to blue light in the presence of riboflavin, or vitamin B2, they rapidly form hydrogels and simultaneously bind proteins, DNA and RNA without those biomolecules needing to be chemically modified beforehand. The study, published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, found the resulting hydrogels supported high cell viability and three-dimensional cell growth, including in colorectal cancer cell models.

"We wanted to develop a platform that is simple, flexible and as cell-friendly as possible, while enabling biomolecules to be incorporated in their active state," said lead author Austin Donnelly Evans, a doctoral researcher at Tampere University. The team demonstrated that the Wnt3A signaling protein remained biologically active after being embedded in the hydrogel, and in some cases the hydrogel could form using standard cell culture media alone, without a separate light-activating chemical.

The researchers, including study leader Professor Oommen P. Oommen and Professor Vesa Hytönen, believe the platform could accelerate the development of three-dimensional cell culture systems, personalized tissue models and hydrogel-based therapies. "We are moving toward assembling human tissues in a Petri dish in much the same way as LEGO building blocks," Evans said.