The effect of porosity and stiffness of glutaraldehyde cross-linked egg white scaffold simulating aged extracellular matrix on distribution and aggregation of ovarian cancer cells

•Ovarian SKOV-3 cancer cells could form into multicellular aggregates (MCS) in GA cross-linked egg white (EW) with higher elastic modulus.•The higher elastic modulus G′ of EW is more beneficial to the proliferation and migration of SKOV-3 cells.•The degradable GA cross-linked EW is potential 3D cell culture matrix economically.

The extracellular matrix (ECM) regulates cellular behaviours in a way that it is still far from completely understood, especially in cancer research field. Here we showed a simple system based on different glutaraldehyde (GA) cross-linked egg white (EW) that supported growth of cells on three dimensional (3D) scaffolds. The reaction between GA and EW was highly active. The pore distribution in GA cross-linked EW was more uniform. The mechanical properties of GA cross-linked EW can be tuned through changing the amount of added GA. Overall, the EW based scaffolds were promising tools that may be used as tunable 3D materials in vitro platforms for cancer tissue engineering and anticancer drugs resistance testing.

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