The culturing of mammalian cells in vitro or in vivo requires specific extracellular matrix environments for proper growth, differentiation and function. Our Extracel™ products provide basic formulations that are flexible, simple to use, and easy to manipulate in order to match physiological conditions such as matrix composition and compliance. Growth factors and matricellular proteins can be incorporated by the researcher by simply adding them prior to hydrogel formation. The hydrogels are formed at physiological pH and are prepared with less than 5 minutes of working time at ambient temperature.

Properties:

• Defined scaffold that promotes cell attachment
• Batch-to-batch consistency
• Non-immunogenic: animal-free composition
• Flexibility (stiffness, composition)
• Crosslinkable 3D hydrogels, films or sponges

Our Extracel hydrogels are composed of three main products: Glycosil (thiol-modified hyaluronan), Gelin-S (thiol-modified, denatured collagen), and Extralink (a polyethylene glycol diacrylate crosslinker). Additionally, some of our kits contain Heprasil (thiol-modified hyaluronan combined with thiol-modified heparin) for the slow release of growth factors.

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Other considerations:

1) For experiments requiring 2.5 ml or less volume:

Use our 7.5 ml kits (3 x 2.5 ml aliquots) as opposed to our 12.5 ml (1x12.5 ml aliquot) kits.

2) For experiments requiring a matrix that can implanted in vivo:

All Glycosan products can be injected or precast and implanted in vivo.

3) For experiments requiring a pre-made hydrogel or sponge:

We recommend Extracel Sponge-96 and Extracel Hydrogel-24 and -96 for use with primary cells, stem cells, and cancer lines.

4) For in vivo angiogenesis:

We recommend Extracel-HP.

5) For tissue engineering:

We recommend Extracel. For the controlled release of growth factors, we recommend Extracel-HP.