Rapid harvesting of stem cell sheets by thermoresponsive bulk poly(-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) nanotopography.

To date, cell sheet engineering-based technologies have actualized diverse scaffold-free bio-products to revitalize unintentionally damaged tissues/organs, including cardiomyopathy, corneal defects, and periodontal damage. Although substantial interest is now centered on the practical utilization of these bio-products for patients, the long harvest period of stem cells- or other primary cell-sheets has become a huge hurdle. Here, we dramatically reduce the total harvest period of a cell sheet (from cell layer formation to cell sheet detachment) composed of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (hBMSCs) down to 2 d with the help of bulk thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) substrate nanotopography, which is not achievable via the previous grafting methods using PNIPAAm.

Compressed collagen intermixed with cornea-derived decellularized extracellular matrix providing mechanical and biochemical niches for corneal stroma analogue.

Compressed collagen is a promising scaffold for corneal stroma analogue due to its facile incorporation of keratocytes while mimicking the mechanical niche of a native cornea with dense collagen fibrillar structures. However, it does not offer the sufficient biochemical niche crucial for in vivo-like quiescent keratocyte phenotype. In this study, we engineered a scaffold for a corneal stroma analogue that mimics both the mechanical and biochemical niches of the corneal stroma by introducing cornea-derived decellularized extracellular matrix (Co-dECM) to the collagen compression process.

Bulk poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) thermoresponsive cell culture platform: toward a new horizon in cell sheet engineering.

Although a conventional method of utilizing thermoresponsive grafted poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) enables the harvest of a healthy confluent cell-to-cell junction preserved cell sheet while limiting the use of the trypsin enzyme, the absolute necessity in the delicate control of a sensitive nm-scale PNIPAAm chain length inevitably decelerates the advancement of cell sheet engineering. In this study, we demonstrate, for the first time, a thermoresponsive cell culture platform composed only of a 'bulk' form of a PNIPAAm hydrogel with the Young's modulus being increased up to the MPa scale. The surface roughness of the bulk PNIPAAm hydrogel initially modulated by the cross-linker concentration was altered from the nm- to μm-scale in response to a change in temperature above/below the low critical solution temperature (LCST) of 32 °C.

Versatile Fabrication of Size- and Shape-Controllable Nanofibrous Concave Microwells for Cell Spheroid Formation.

Although the microfabrication techniques for microwells enabled to guide physiologically relevant three-dimensional cell spheroid formation, there have been substantial interests to more closely mimic nano/microtopographies of in vivo cellular microenvironment. Here, we developed a versatile fabrication process for nanofibrous concave microwells (NCMs) with a controllable size and shape. The key to the fabrication process was the use of an array of hemispherical convex electrolyte solution drops as the grounded collector for electrospinning, which greatly improved the degree of freedom of the size, shape, and curvature of an NCM.

Aquatic flower-inspired cell culture platform with simplified medium exchange process for facilitating cell-surface interaction studies.

Establishing fundamentals for regulating cell behavior with engineered physical environments, such as topography and stiffness, requires a large number of cell culture experiments. However, cell culture experiments in cell-surface interaction studies are generally labor-intensive and time-consuming due to many experimental tasks, such as multiple fabrication processes in sample preparation and repetitive medium exchange in cell culture. In this work, a novel aquatic flower-inspired cell culture platform (AFIP) is presented.

The effect of adenovirus-IkappaBalpha transduction on the chemosensitivity of lung cancer cell line with resistance to cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II)(cisplatin) and doxorubicin(adriamycin).

Resistance to chemotherapeutic agents is the major reason for treatment failure of cancer chemotherapy. Some chemotherapeutic drugs induce the activation of NF-kappaB in cancer cells that results in their resistance to anticancer drugs. But the role of NF-kappaB in acquired resistance has not been well investigated.

Inhibitory effect of adenovirus-uteroglobin transduction on the growth of lung cancer cell lines.

Uteroglobin is a secretory protein synthesized by most epithelia, including the respiratory tract. It has strong anti-inflammatory properties that appear to be related to the inhibition of phospholipase A2. Recent experimental evidence indicates that uteroglobin has an inhibitory effect on the proliferation and invasion of cancer cells.