The Development of Plant Polymer Scaffolds for the Growth and Development of Triple-negative Breast Cancer Cells

Biopolymers are functional materials and among biopolymers arabinoxylans (AX) are the main non-starch polysaccharide in cereals and other plants. AX is composed of xylose and arabinose, and the ester-linkage of ferulic acid with arabinose confers its bioactive properties. The backbone of AX is similar to that of glycosaminoglycans, a major extracellular matrix of the human body. The objective was to develop plant-derived AX mixed soft scaffolds suitable for supporting the growth and proliferation of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells such as MDA MB231 and Patient-derived xenograft (PDX). TNBC is a very aggressive form of breast cancer that accounts for 15%-20% of breast cancer cases. Patients with TNBC have the worst prognosis caused by stemness of the cells and clumping of cells with hypoxia regions within the clumps. Wheat bran and sugar beet pulp are two major agricultural byproducts and feeds for livestock left over after milling and extracting sugar respectively. We have extracted AX from wheat bran (WBAX) and sugar beet pulp (SBAX) and developed various soft scaffolds with varying proportions of Na-Alginate, collagen, WBAX, and SBAX. The scaffolds were seeded with triple-negative breast cancer cell-line MDA MB231 and Patient-derived xenografts (PDX). We observed t