Embryoid bodies on the conveyor
The technology of bioprinting with stem cells has been testedLeonid Popov, Membrane
American scientists have made an important step forward in the transition of cell therapy from early experiments to serial practice. Biologists have adapted the inkjet printing technique for the high-speed production of cellular aggregates capable of differentiating into any tissue.
Researchers from Harvard Medical School focused their attention on the early stage of the development of embryonic stem cell culture (ESC), when they form the so-called embryoid body (ET, embryoid body). These spherical conglomerates are created from pluripotent ESCs and reproduce the earliest stages of embryo development in laboratory conditions.
Such structures serve as models of cellular and molecular interactions at the first stages of the formation of an organism (in the case of a person, this is a phase inaccessible by other methods). In addition, ET, with proper intervention, can turn into cultures of other cells (neurons, cardiomyocytes, and so on), and therefore are important for the development of regenerative medicine and tissue and organ cultivation technology.
However, on the way to the expansion of such technology, there is a problem of reliable manufacturing of a set of ET without mechanical injury, with the right size, shape and uniformity, with high reproducibility of parameters from instance to instance.
Previously, manual pipettes and the hanging-drop method were used to create embryoid bodies. But this method is slow (it takes about 10 minutes to prepare one drop, in which it will then develop), is not too accurate and does not differ in reliable repetition of the result.
According to EurekAlert! (New technique advances bioprinting of cells), the Americans solved this problem by replacing the pipette and the hands of the laboratory assistant with a bioprinter that prints slender rows of microscopic droplets with a suspension of ESCs on the glass (inverted lid of the Petri dish) (see figure). The speed of such printing can reach 160 drops per second.
Then the lid is turned over and the cup is covered with it. Suspended droplets remain in this position for 24 hours, during which time the cells are collected in ET. Next, the embryoid bodies are moved to a plate with almost a hundred depressions, in which isolated ET develop for another 96 hours, after which further work can be carried out with them. (The image on the left shows the fluorescence of a conglomerate of cells grown by a new method under a microscope. Scale ruler – 200 microns).
Scientists have successfully tested their method on mouse cells, but in theory it is also applicable to human ESCs. Now the Harvard team intends to compare the functionality of cells grown in a new and old way. And the results of the current experience are presented in an article in the journal Biomicrofluids (Feng Xu et al. Embryonic stem cell bioprinting for uniform and controlled size embryoid body formation).
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru05.07.2011