Modulation of APC expression in hMSC during nomadic culture on heterogeneous field of elasticity

Abstract

Recently, it has been established that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) memorize the history of mechanical dose from culture environment, which essentially affect the lineage specifications. To ensure stemness of MSCs in maintaining subculture, accumulation of such mechanical dose should be avoided in order to inhibit the lineage bias. For this issue, we have tried to develop cell culture hydrogels whose surface has heterogeneous distribution of elasticity, and to make MSCs move nomadically among different region of elasticity in a certain short duration. In this report, we have established complete design of the microelastically-patterned gels to realize the nomadic movement of MSCs and quasi-oscillatory input of mechanosignals to the MSCs. After culture of MSCs on the gels for 4days, the highest up-regulation of APC gene was first found from comprehensive analysis for gene expression with DNA microarray, which is deeply related to Wnt signaling and cell motility.