Synthetic peptide-acrylate surfaces for long-term self-renewal and cardiomyocyte differentiation of human embryonic stem cells

• Published in: Nature biotechnology Vol. 28; no. 6; pp. 606 - 610
• Main Authors: Melkoumian, Zara, Weber, Jennifer L, Weber, David M, Fadeev, Andrei G, Zhou, Yue, Dolley-Sonneville, Paula, Yang, Jiwei, Qiu, Liqun, Priest, Catherine A, Shogbon, Christopher, Martin, Arthur W, Nelson, Jodelle, West, Peter, Beltzer, James P, Pal, Santona, Brandenberger, Ralph
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Nature Publishing Group US 01.06.2010; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/532/1360; 631/532/2441; 631/61/338/552; 631/61/51/1844; Acrylates - pharmacology; Agriculture; Amino Acid Sequence; Animal cells; Animals; Bioinformatics; Biological and medical sciences; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedical Engineering/Biotechnology; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Cell Culture Techniques - methods; Cell differentiation; Cell Differentiation - drug effects; Cell morphology; Cell Proliferation - drug effects; Cellular therapy; Embryonic stem cells; Embryonic Stem Cells - cytology; Embryonic Stem Cells - drug effects; Embryos; Establishment of new cell lines, improvement of cultural methods, mass cultures; Eukaryotic cell cultures; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Health aspects; Health. Pharmaceutical industry; Heart cells; Humans; Industrial applications and implications. Economical aspects; Karyotypes; letter; Life Sciences; Methods. Procedures. Technologies; Mice; Miscellaneous; Molecular Sequence Data; Myocytes, Cardiac - cytology; Myocytes, Cardiac - drug effects; Peptides; Peptides - chemistry; Peptides - pharmacology; Physiological aspects; Raw materials; Stem cells; Surface Properties - drug effects; Time Factors; United States; Human; Cell culture; Self renewal; Peptides; Support; Embryonic cell; Cardiomyocyte; Stem cell; Cell differentiation; Long term
• ISSN: 1087-0156; 1546-1696; 1546-1696
• DOI: 10.1038/nbt.1629

The development of fully defined culture conditions for human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) should enhance experimental reproducibility, reduce unwanted contaminants and facilitate scale-up production. Melkoumian et al . show that a substrate made of peptides derived from extracellular matrix proteins supports long-term culture of hESCs and differentiation to cardiomyocytes. Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have two properties of interest for the development of cell therapies: self-renewal and the potential to differentiate into all major lineages of somatic cells in the human body. Widespread clinical application of hESC-derived cells will require culture methods that are low-cost, robust, scalable and use chemically defined raw materials. Here we describe synthetic peptide-acrylate surfaces (PAS) that support self-renewal of hESCs in chemically defined, xeno-free medium. H1 and H7 hESCs were successfully maintained on PAS for over ten passages. Cell morphology and phenotypic marker expression were similar for cells cultured on PAS or Matrigel. Cells on PAS retained normal karyotype and pluripotency and were able to differentiate to functional cardiomyocytes on PAS. Finally, PAS were scaled up to large culture-vessel formats. Synthetic, xeno-free, scalable surfaces that support the self-renewal and differentiation of hESCs will be useful for both research purposes and development of cell therapies.