Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : September 03, 2017 - September 06, 2017
Pluripotent stem cells have the ability to generate multicellular tissues with cooperative cell differentiation and movement. During such self-organizing process, cells adjust their fates and behaviors depending on mechanical and geometric environment through 2 types of cell adhesion; cell-substrate and cell-cell adhesion. Here we investigated changes in pluripotency of mouse embryonic stem cells cultured on microstructured mesh sheets in LIF-supplemented pluripotency maintenance medium. The mesh sheets, microfabricated using photolithography, have large mesh openings and narrow mesh strands, hence cell-substrate adhesion area is minimized. Upon seeding, cells attached to the strands were able to proliferate, fill the mesh openings and form sheet-like tissues. Immunofluorescence microscopy revealed that the cells expressed pluripotency markers at 3rd day after seeding. Interestingly, the sheet-like tissues spontaneously became thicker and finally generated spherical cyst-like tissues attributable to cell differentiation. Thus, our results suggest that modulating the cell-substrate adhesion induces these self-organizing morphological changes in 2 steps; sheet-like tissues relying on cell-cell adhesion to overcome substrate restriction and spherical cyst-like tissues accompanied by loss of pluripotency. This research may help to build up a new platform for studying pluripotent stem cell self-organization leading to the generation of functional organoids.
