title: Acceleration of neuronal precursors differentiation induced by substrate nanotopography.
abstract: Embryonic stem (ES) cell differentiation in specific cell lineages is a major issue in cell biology particularly in regenerative medicine. Differentiation is usually achieved by using biochemical factors and it is not clear whether mechanical properties of the substrate over which cells are grown can affect proliferation and differentiation. Therefore, we produced patterns in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) consisting of groove and pillar arrays of sub-micrometric lateral resolution as substrates for cell cultures. We analyzed the effect of different nanostructures on differentiation of ES-derived neuronal precursors into neuronal lineage without adding biochemical factors. Neuronal precursors adhered on PDMS more effectively than on glass coverslips. We demonstrated that neuronal yield was enhanced by increasing pillars height from 35 to 400 nm. On higher pillar neuronal differentiation reaches ∼80% 96 h after plating and the largest differentiation enhancement of pillars over flat PDMS was observed during the first 6 h of culture. We conclude that PDMS nanopillars accelerate and increase neuronal differentiation.
authors.affiliation: CNR-IOM Laboratorio TASC, Area Science Park, Basovizza, 34149 Trieste, Italy.
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Migliorini
authors.forename: Gianluca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Grenci
authors.forename: Jelena
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ban
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pozzato
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tormen
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lazzarino
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Torre
authors.forename: Maria Elisabetta
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Ruaro
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000379:methods; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes; D053595:Embryonic Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D049329:Nanostructures; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D013499:Surface Properties
chemical_list: D004129:Dimethylpolysiloxanes; C013830:baysilon