Affiliation:
1. Department of Instructive Biomaterials Engineering MERLN Institute for Technology Inspired Regenerative Medicine Maastricht University Maastricht 6200 MD The Netherlands
2. Department of Biomedical Engineering Institute for Complex Molecular Systems (ICMS) Eindhoven University of Technology Eindhoven 5612 AZ The Netherlands
3. Maastricht Multimodal Molecular Imaging (M4i) Institute Division of Imaging Mass Spectrometry Maastricht University Maastricht 6200 MD The Netherlands
Abstract
AbstractThe native extracellular matrix (ECM) undergoes constant remodeling, where adhesive ligand presentation changes over time and in space to control stem cell function. As such, it is of interest to develop 2D biointerfaces able to study these complex ligand stem‐cell interactions. In this study, a novel dynamic bio interface based on DNA hybridization is developed, which can be employed to control ligand display kinetics and used to study dynamic cell‐ligand interaction. In this approach, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) are functionalized with single‐strand DNA (MSN‐ssDNA) and spin‐coated on a glass substrate to create the 2D bio interface. Cell adhesive tripeptide RGD is conjugated to complementary DNA strands (csDNA) of 9, 11, or 20 nucleotides in length, to form csDNA‐RGD. The resulting 3 csDNA‐RGD conjugates can hybridize with the ssDNA on the MSN surface, presenting RGD with increased ligand dissociation rates as DNA length is shortened. Slow RGD dissociation rates led to enhanced stem cell adhesion and spreading, resulting in elongated cell morphology. Cells on surfaces with slow RGD dissociation rates also exhibited higher motility, migrating in multiple directions compared to cells on surfaces with fast RGD dissociation rates. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on dynamic ligand‐stem cell interactions.
Funder
China Scholarship Council