3D culture of salivary gland stem cell in orthotropic decellularized extracellular matrix hydrogels

Radiotherapy (RT) in patients with cancer can kill cancer cells but also damage normal cells or tissues. During the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer or thyroid cancer, hyposalivation is a representative chronic side effect of radio-damaged salivary glands (SGs). The major symptom of hyposalivation is mouth dryness, resulting in several subsequent long-term complications. No effective therapeutic approaches have been developed to manage this symptom. In this study, we developed the first rat SG tissue-derived decellularized extracellular matrix (dECM) hydrogel (DSGM-hydrogel) as a functional orthotropic bio-scaffold for future efficient SG stem cell therapy. DSGM-hydrogels were characterized by rheological or biochemical analyses and rat SG stem/progenitor cells (rSGSCs) were then subjected to three-dimensional culture in the DSGM-hydrogels. Interestingly, DSGM-hydrogel-embedded rSGSCs survived and expressed SG functional differentiation marker of amylase IA and increased enzyme activity of ...