title: Vertical nanocolumn-assisted pluripotent stem cell colony formation with minimal cell-penetration.
abstract: The biological applications of vertical nanostructures mostly rely on their intracellular accessibility through the cellular membrane by promoting cell-to-nanostructure interactions. Herein, we report a seemingly counter-intuitive approach for the spontaneous formation of mouse induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived three-dimensional spherical colonies with unlimited self-renewal and differentiation potential. The comprehensive analyses of iPSCs cultured on vertical silicon nanocolumn arrays (vSNAs) with various nanocolumn geometries show reduced cell-to-substrate adhesion and enhanced cell-to-cell interactions under optimized vSNA conditions, successfully accommodating the spontaneous production of iPSC-derived spherical colonies. Remarkably, these colonies which were only minimally penetrated by and thereby easily harvested from wafer-sized vSNAs display a substantial increase in pluripotency marker expression and successfully differentiate into three germ layers. Our vSNAs capable of large-scale fabrication, efficient for spherical colony formation, and reusable for multiple iPSC culture could serve as a broad-impact culture platform for stem cell research.
authors.affiliation: Center for Theragnosis, Biomedical Research Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Hwarangno 14-gil 5, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea. eunyang@kist.re.kr soyeonkim@kist.re.kr.
authors.forename: Hyunju
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, 261 Cheomdan-gwagiro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea. mhyoon@gist.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Dong Hee
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Center for Theragnosis, Biomedical Research Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Hwarangno 14-gil 5, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea. eunyang@kist.re.kr soyeonkim@kist.re.kr.
authors.forename: Kyung Hee
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Koo
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, 261 Cheomdan-gwagiro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea. mhyoon@gist.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Seyeong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, 261 Cheomdan-gwagiro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea. mhyoon@gist.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Seong-Min
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Stem Cell Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea and Department of Functional Genomics, Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), KRIBB campus, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Janghwan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, 261 Cheomdan-gwagiro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea. mhyoon@gist.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Myung-Han
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.affiliation: Center for Theragnosis, Biomedical Research Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Hwarangno 14-gil 5, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea. eunyang@kist.re.kr soyeonkim@kist.re.kr and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), KIST campus, Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: So Yeon
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Center for Theragnosis, Biomedical Research Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Hwarangno 14-gil 5, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea. eunyang@kist.re.kr soyeonkim@kist.re.kr and Department of Biological Chemistry, Korea University of Science and Technology (UST), KIST campus, Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Eun Gyeong
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D057026:Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D051379:Mice; D036103:Nanotechnology