Small
Small
5 years ago

Liquid Crystalline Networks toward Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Repair

Liquid Crystalline Networks toward Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Repair
Elisabetta Cerbai, Raffaele Coppini, Josè M. Pioner, Daniele Martella, Corrado Poggesi, Cecilia Ferrantini, Diederik S. Wiersma, Lorenzo Santini, Matteo Lulli, Paolo Paoli, Camilla Parmeggiani, Leonardo Sacconi
The communication reports the use of liquid crystalline networks (LCNs) for engineering tissue cultures with human cells. Their ability as cell scaffolds for different cell lines is demonstrated. Preliminary assessments of the material biocompatibility are performed on human dermal fibroblasts and murine muscle cells (C2C12), demonstrating that coatings or other treatments are not needed to use the acrylate-based materials as support. Moreover, it is found that adherent C2C12 cells undergo differentiation, forming multinucleated myotubes, which show the typical elongated shape, and contain bundles of stress fibers. Once biocompatibility is demonstrated, the same LCN films are used as a substrate for culturing human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocites (hiPSC-CMs) proving that LCNs are capable to develop adult-like dimensions and a more mature cell function in a short period of culture in respect to standard supports. The demonstrated biocompatibility together with the extraordinary features of LCNs opens to preparation of complex cell scaffolds, both patterned and stimulated, for dynamic cell culturing. The ability of these materials to improve cell maturation and differentiation will be developed toward engineered heart and skeletal muscular tissues exploring regenerative medicine toward bioartificial muscles for injured sites replacement. Liquid crystalline networks are demonstrated as powerful scaffolds for different cell lines. Demonstration of the complete adhesion on bare films by seeding murine muscle cells and human dermal fibroblasts is shown. By seeding single human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes we demonstrated how LCN can promote a more mature cell phenotype in a short period of culture maintaining the integrity of film potential.

Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi

DOI: 10.1002/smll.201702677

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.