Surface manipulation using gold micro pattern to modulate stem cell behaviour

Abstract

Various biophysical methods like substrate topography were used in the past to promote the specific cell activities like proliferation, differentiation. However, the effect of topography on myogenic lineage commitment of stem cell has not been widely exposed. In this project, we studied specific differentiation fate of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) grown on biofunctionalized gold micropattern in order to understand the cell-material interaction and its effect on the cell differentiation fate. The hMSCs were seeded on the bio-functionalized gold micropattern substrate and plain gold coated substrate which acted as the control. The patterned cells showed well-organized and aligned actin filaments network. In contrast, randomly distributed actin filaments network was observed in cells grown plain gold coated substrate. To identify the stem cell differentiation fate, a mature marker of myogenic lineage [β-myosin heavy chain (MHC)] was used. The immunostaining results revealed that β-MHC was predominantly expressed in patterned cells only while no MHC expression was observed in unpatterned cells. This study demonstrated that our novel biofunctionalized gold micropattern platform has ability to induce myogenesis in stem cells and can be used to form the terminally differentiated myotubes in future.