Combinatorial Extracellular Matrix Essay - 909 Words

Combinatorial extracellular matrix microenvironments promote survival and phenotype of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived endothelial cells in hypoxia; a review Endothelial cells derived from induced human pluripotent stem cells (iPSC-ECs) are a promising candidate for enhancing the treatment of ischemic tissues. However, current understanding of the microenvironmental factors involved in endothelial differentiation is limited, leading to low cell survival following transplantation. Ultimately this masks the therapeutic potential of stem cells and regenerative medicine. To address this limitation, research published in Acta Biomaterialia examined the role of combinatorial extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins on endothelial†¦show more content†¦Had this experiment not been performed using a microscale high-throughput platform, these interactions would have been difficult to observe. In analyzing the detailed methods used to achieve these results, it is apparent that the systematic analysis of cell survival, phenotype and function stems from the authors’ decision to use a high throughput ECM microarray platform. While previous studies typically focused on ECM-mediated induction of stem cell differentiation and renewal. The authors of this article envisioned the microarray platform as a powerful tool to advance clinical applications of stem cell therapy under conditions of disease. This idea was quickly validated as data was replicated in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional settings. However, one limitation of the microarray platform was its inability to determine the cause of the synergistic and redundant relationships when performing cross-comparisons of individual ECM combinations. While these findings reaffirm the ECMs role in regulating the function of cells, more work is needed to understand how combinatorial ECMs fine-tune iPSC-EC responses. G iven that the induced pluripotent stem cells chosen for this experiment lack the gene expression of a primary endothelial cell. This studies entire clinical application depends on the ability of an iPSC-EC to express those same