Figure 8. Upper cases (A, B) represent merged fluorescent images on the magnitude X1000. The red spots represent labeled hydrogel, and the nucleus is stained with DAPI (blue). (A) and (B) represent cellular uptake of hydrogel alone and in complex with CB8 correspondingly. Lower cases (a, b) represent the correspondent phase-contrast images on the magnitude X400 where arrows indicate the cytoplasm. The concentration of each hydrogel was 0.18 mg/mL.
Supramolecular Effects on Cellular Internalization (Role of Size, Charge, and Rigidity)
Overall, these data show that the modified ALG (drug carriers), by covalently anchoring VG tags into the polysaccharides that are readily non-covalently complexed to CB8 macromolecules have a distinct ability to cross leukemia cancer cells (Figure 9), giving a more explicit description of the cellular uptake mechanisms of supramolecular hydrogels in cancer therapy.