Maintenance and differentiation of human ES cells on polyvinylidene fluoride scaffolds immobilized with a vitronectin‐derived peptide

Abstract

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is biocompatible, easy to fabricate, and has piezoelectric properties; it has been used for many biomedical applications including stem cell engineering. However, long‐term cultivation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and their differentiation toward cardiac lineages on PVDF have not been investigated. Herein, PVDF nanoscaled membrane scaffolds were fabricated by electrospinning; a vitronectin‐derived peptide‐mussel adhesive protein fusion (VNm) was immobilized on the scaffolds. hESCs cultured on the VNm‐coated PVDF scaffold (VNm–PVDF scaffold) were stably expanded for more than 10 passages while maintaining the expression of pluripotency markers and genomic integrity. Under cardiac differentiation conditions, hESCs on the VNm–PVDF scaffold generated more spontaneously beating colonies and showed the upregulation of cardiac‐related genes, compared with those cultured on Matrigel and VNm alone. Thus, VNm–PVDF scaffolds may be suitable for the long‐term culture of hESCs and their differentiation into cardiac cells, thus expanding their application in regenerative medicine.

A Novel Vitronectin Peptide Facilitates Differentiation of Oligodendrocytes from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells (Synthetic ECM for Oligodendrocyte Differentiation)

“…We tested Matrigel, recombinant VN (50 µg/mL), commercially available VN-derived peptide (VN XF ® from STEMCELL Technologies), VNP1, and VNP2 to determine whether these ECM molecules support oligodendrocyte differentiation from hPSC-derived OPCs. Another VN-derived peptide (VNm) was also included in the list because we have previously shown that it can support stable adherence and long-term culture of hPSCs [ 32 ]. OPCs were seeded on various matrices at the same density and induced to differentiate through SOX10 overexpression.…”

“…To date, various ECM molecules have been identified for diverse biomedical applications, specifically to direct the differentiation of stem cells [ 44 ]. VN is one of the most widely used ECMs, particularly for hPSC engineering, because VN and VN-derived peptides are capable of maintaining hPSCs [ 16 , 45 ] and even facilitating their differentiation into specific cell types, including oligodendrocytes [ 32 ]. In this study, we to create a novel peptide derived from the VN peptide for the differentiation of oligodendrocytes.…”

Electrical Stimulation Enabled via Electrospun Piezoelectric Polymeric Nanofibers for Tissue Regeneration

“…Departing from improving the surface property for protein adhesion, directly introducing adhesive protein and signal molecules have also been proposed [173]. The human embryonic stem cells cultured on a nanofibrous PVDF web with vitronectin-derived peptide-mussel adhesive protein fusion coating were stably expanded for more than 10 passages, maintaining the expression of pluripotency markers and genomic integrity [174].…”

Impact of Electrospun Piezoelectric Core–Shell PVDFhfp/PDMS Mesh on Tenogenic and Inflammatory Gene Expression in Human Adipose-Derived Stem Cells: Comparison of Static Cultivation with Uniaxial Cyclic Tensile Stretching

“…Piezoelectric materials have been shown to affect stem cell differentiation [ 11 , 12 ], as cells are able to sense the electrical stimuli provided by cyclic stretching/compression of the piezoelectric substrate. For example, electrical stimulation via piezoelectric materials led to a differentiation in neural stem cells [ 11 ], embryonic stem cells towards cardiomyocytes [ 13 ] and osteogenesis in mesenchymal stem cells [ 14 , 15 ].…”