Developing defined substrates for stem cell culture and differentiation

Louise Hagbard, Kate Cameron, Paul August, Christopher Penton, Malin Parmar, David Hay, Therése Kallur

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

Over the past few decades, a variety of different reagents for stem cell maintenance and differentiation have been commercialized. These reagents share a common goal in facilitating the manufacture of products suitable for cell therapy whilst reducing the amount of non-defined components. Lessons from developmental biology have identified signalling molecules that can guide the differentiation process in vitro, but less attention has been paid to the extra-cellular matrix used. With the introduction of more biologically relevant and defined matrices, that better mimic specific cell niches, researchers now have powerful resources to fine-tune their in vitro differentiation systems, that may allow the manufacture of therapeutically relevant cell types. In this review article, we revisit the basics of the extracellular matrix, and explore the important role of the cell-matrix interaction. We focus on laminin proteins since they help to maintain pluripotency and drive cell fate specification.
Original languageEnglish
JournalPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Early online date21 May 2018
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 21 May 2018

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