title: Laser patterning for the study of MSC cardiogenic differentiation at the single-cell level.
abstract: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been cited as contributors to heart repair through cardiogenic differentiation and multiple cellular interactions, including the paracrine effect, cell fusion, and mechanical and electrical couplings. Due to heart-muscle complexity, progress in the development of knowledge concerning the role of MSCs in cardiac repair is heavily based on MSC-cardiomyocyte coculture. In conventional coculture systems, however, thein vivocardiac muscle structure, in which rod-shaped cells are connected end-to-end, is not sustained; instead, irregularly shaped cells spread randomly, resulting in randomly distributed cell junctions. Consequently, contact-mediated cell-cell interactions (e.g., the electrical triggering signal and the mechanical contraction wave that propagate through MSC-cardiomyocyte junctions) occur randomly. Thus, the data generated on the beneficial effects of MSCs may be irrelevant toin vivobiological processes. In this study, we explored whether cardiomyocyte alignment, the most important phenotype, is relevant to stem cell cardiogenic differentiation. Here, we report (i) the construction of a laser-patterned, biochip-based, stem cell-cardiomyocyte coculture model with controlled cell alignment; and (ii) single-cell-level data on stem cell cardiogenic differentiation underin vivo-like cardiomyocyte alignment conditions.
authors: Department of Bioengineering and COMSET, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA ; Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
authors: Zhen
authors: Z
authors: Ma
authors: Biomedical R&D Center, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
authors: Qiuying
authors: Q
authors: Liu
authors: Department of Bioengineering and COMSET, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA.
authors: Huaxiao
authors: H
authors: Yang
authors: Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA.
authors: Raymond B
authors: RB
authors: Runyan
authors: New York Medical College/Westchester Medical Center Stem Cell Laboratory, New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York, USA.
authors: Carol A
authors: CA
authors: Eisenberg
authors: Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
authors: Meifeng
authors: M
authors: Xu
authors: Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA.
authors: Thomas K
authors: TK
authors: Borg
authors: Department of Regenerative Medicine and Cell Biology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA.
authors: Roger
authors: R
authors: Markwald
authors: Biomedical R&D Center, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
authors: Yifei
authors: Y
authors: Wang
authors: Department of Bioengineering and COMSET, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA.
authors: Bruce Z
authors: BZ
authors: Gao
keywords: cardiogenic differentiation; mesenchymal stem cells; microenvironment; optical force; single-cell analysis