Glycosaminoglycan-Binding Hydrogels Enable Mechanical Control of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Self-Renewal

Reaping the promise of human embryonic stem (hES) cells hinges on effective defined culture conditions. Efforts to identify chemically defined environments for hES cell propagation would benefit from understanding the relevant functional properties of the substratum. Biological materials are often e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACS nano 2012-11, Vol.6 (11), p.10168-10177
Main Authors: Musah, Samira, Morin, Stephen A, Wrighton, Paul J, Zwick, Daniel B, Jin, Song, Kiessling, Laura L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activation
Binding Sites
Cell Proliferation
Cells, Cultured
Culture
Glycosaminoglycans
Glycosaminoglycans - chemistry
Glycosaminoglycans - pharmacokinetics
Hinges
Human
Humans
Hydrogels
Hydrogels - chemistry
Mechanical properties
Mechanotransduction, Cellular - physiology
Nanostructure
Pluripotent Stem Cells - cytology
Pluripotent Stem Cells - physiology
Stem cells
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Summary:Reaping the promise of human embryonic stem (hES) cells hinges on effective defined culture conditions. Efforts to identify chemically defined environments for hES cell propagation would benefit from understanding the relevant functional properties of the substratum. Biological materials are often employed as substrata, but their complexity obscures a molecular level analysis of their relevant attributes. Because the properties of hydrogels can be tuned and altered systematically, these materials can reveal the impact of substratum features on cell fate decisions. By tailoring the peptide displayed to cells and the substrate mechanical properties, a hydrogel was generated that binds hES cell surface glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) and functions robustly in a defined culture medium to support long-term hES cell self-renewal. A key attribute of the successful GAG-binding hydrogels is their stiffness. Only stiff substrates maintain hES cell proliferation and pluripotency. These findings indicate that cells can respond to mechanical information transmitted via GAG engagement. Additionally, we found that the stiff matrices afforded activation of the paralogous proteins YAP/TAZ, which are transcriptional coactivators implicated in mechanosensing and hES cell pluripotency. These results indicate that the substratum mechanics can be tuned to activate specific pathways linked to pluripotency. Because several different hES and induced pluripotent stem cell lines respond similarly, we conclude that stiff substrata are more effective for the long-term propagation of human pluripotent stem cells.
ISSN:1936-0851
1936-086X
DOI:10.1021/nn3039148