Nanoscale Spatial Arrangement of Arginine−Glycine−Aspartate Peptides Influences Dedifferentiation of Chondrocytes
Cell dedifferentiation is a critical topic with a logic reversed to cell differentiation. Ding¨s group prepared nanopatterns and micro/nanopatterns of cell-adhesive peptides of arginine-glycine-aspartate (RGD) on nonfouling hydrogels of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) to examine the effects of RGD nanospacing on adhesion and dedifferentiation of chondrocytes. The relatively larger RGD nanospacing above 70 nm was found to enhance the maintainence of the chondrocyte phenotype in two-dimensional culture, albeit not beneficial for adhesion of chondrocytes. A unique micro/nanopattern was employed to decouple cell spreading, cell shape and cell-cell contact from RGD nanospacing. Under given spreading size and shape of single cells, the large RGD nanospacing was still in favor of preserving the normal phenotype of chondrocytes. Hence, the nanoscale spatial arrangement of cell-adhesive ligands affords a new regulator of cell dedifferentiation, which should be taken into consideration in corresponding biomaterial design for regenerative medicine.
The above work was published in Nano Letters with Mr. Shiyu LI, a master candidate as the first author.
Effects of nanoscale spatial arrangement of arginine-glycine-aspartate peptides on dedifferentiation of chondrocytes
Shiyu Li, Xuan Wang, Bin Cao, Kai Ye, Zhenhua Li, Jiandong Ding*, Nano Lett., 15(11), 7755-7765 (2015)