QGel™ does not recommend to cast QGel™ MT 3D Matrix solution directly in multiwell plates or to coat plastic or glass plates. By doing this, the gel can not freely swell and impeded swelling results in gels with different material characteristics from those we describe in our certificate of analysis. Indeed, QGel™ matrices swell slightly after cross-linking (ca. 30-40% of their initial volume). For more info on swelling please visit this FAQ.

We recommend instead to make gel discs or drops that freely swell and float in medium.

Advantages of making gel discs or drops is that they can be easily transferred to new type of support and handled for different analysis (e.g. confocal, viability test, histology), as would a biopsy or a piece of living tissue (see picture below). Moreover, gas and nutrient diffusion is improved when disc can freely move in the well.

In the video How to encapsulate cells in QGel, you see how easy it is to make 3D gel discs or drops from QGel™ MT 3D Matrix. Please refer also to the 1-page QuickGuide to Cast Gels or to p.08-09 of the QGel™ Product Information brochure that describes the process in details.

However, if you still wish to cast the QGel matrices directly into the well plates, we suggest keeping similar casting gel volume per well any time an experiment is repeated to ensure reproducibility of the resulting new material characteristics. In addition, we also recommend to keep the same incubation time as described in our standard protocol. If you wish to make gels without encapsulated cells (e.g. to seed cells on top afterwards) you can directly use 500uL of QGel Buffer to resuspend the powder in the vial.