Summary
This application note demonstrates rapid recovery of viable MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells from 2, 4 and 6 kPa LunaX™ ECMs. The LunaX Cell Recovery Kit fully digested each matrix within 25 minutes, preserved viability above 80% and yielded cells that re-attached with healthy morphology.
What you’ll learn
- How to recover MDA-MB-231 cells from photocrosslinked LunaX ECMs using an enzymatic digestion workflow.
- How quickly 2, 4 and 6 kPa hydrogels digest at 37 °C.
- Whether increased ECM crosslinking density changes digestion kinetics or recovery performance.
- How cell viability and morphology compare before and after recovery.
- How recovered cells can connect 3D culture with flow cytometry, omics, single-cell analysis and re-culture workflows.
Key findings
- LunaX ECMs at 2, 4 and 6 kPa were fully digested within 25 minutes at 37 °C.
- Digestion curves closely overlapped across the complete stiffness range, indicating that increased crosslinking density did not measurably slow recovery.
- Post-recovery cell viability remained above 80% at every stiffness, with no statistically significant loss compared with encapsulated cells.
- Recovered cells readily re-attached to tissue culture plastic and retained the spindle-shaped mesenchymal morphology expected for healthy MDA-MB-231 cells.
- A single recovery protocol can therefore be used across mechanically distinct LunaX conditions before flow cytometry, omics, sequencing or re-culture.
