I am looking for a material to be used as substrate in cell culture study with high stiffness. varying from 5-10 MPa.
From a synthetic materials point of view, 5-10 MPa is not a particularly high modulus, but is in the right range for a moderately cross-linked elastomer. Presumably, you are looking for something with low biological activity, so I would suggest trying polybutadiene or polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). PDMS has been used here to produce substrates with moduli between 0.05-1.79 MPa
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15603807
Thanks James for your comment. I am using PDMS for lower range of stiffness, I will check ploybutadiene. thanks.
to be more precise, I am looking for a culture condition for chondrocytes that keeps collagen 2 expression up regulated.
Chondocytes fare much better in 3D microenvironments compared to 2D. In this respect, PDMS may not be such as good choice although James is absolutely right that it can be readily formulated to achieve the desired MPa modulus. PEG or HA-based hydrogels have been successfully used for chondrocyte culture, and have tunable stiffness. I would suggest exploring these systems.
I like Daniel's comment. Also, you may want to manipulate the oxygen tension in your incubator, and bring it down to a level that chondrocytes would experience physiologically, in vivo. Perhaps the reason so many researchers grow chondrocytes in vitro as tightly packed pellets in the bottom of 15 mL conical tubes is because they thrive when they are all competing for oxygen?
Hello,
In addition to the above valuable comments you might want to try a double substrate approach meaning depositing a cross-linked chitosan film on top of the PDMS. The effect of the additional film roughness due to the chitosan film offers more surface area for growth. The interaction of chitosan with chondrocytes is elaborated upon in the following link:http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=chemeng_biotechnology&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DChitosan%2Bstiffness%26FORM%3DPERNSB%26PC%3DPE08#search=%22Chitosan%20stiffness%22
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