Thermoresponsive mixed polymer brush to effectively control the adhesion and separation of stem cells by altering temperature.

During the last few decades, thermoresponsive materials for modulating cell adhesion have been investigated for the application of tissue engineering. In this study, we developed thermoresponsive mixed polymer brushes consisting of poly(-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) and poly(-dimethylaminopropylacrylamide) (PDMAPAAm). The mixed polymer brushes were prepared on a glass substrate via the reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization of DMAPAAm and subsequent atom transfer radical polymerization of NIPAAm.

Engineered Human Muscle Tissue from Multilayered Aligned Myofiber Sheets for Studies of Muscle Physiology and Predicting Drug Response.

In preclinical drug testing, human muscle tissue models are critical to understanding the complex physiology, including drug effects in the human body. This study reports that a multilayering approach to cell sheet-based engineering produces an engineered human muscle tissue with sufficient contractile force suitable for measurement. A thermoresponsive micropatterned substrate regulates the biomimetic alignment of myofiber structures enabling the harvest of the aligned myofibers as a single cell sheet.