TUTCRIS Research Portal

TY - JOUR

T1 - Honeycomb porous films as permeable scaffold materials for human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium

AU - Calejo, Maria Teresa

AU - Ilmarinen, Tanja

AU - Jongprasitkul, Hatai

AU - Skottman, Heli

AU - Kellomäki, Minna

PY - 2016/7/1

Y1 - 2016/7/1

N2 - Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in developed countries, characterised by the degeneration of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a pigmented cell monolayer that closely interacts with the photoreceptors. RPE transplantation is thus considered a very promising therapeutic option to treat this disease. In this work, porous honeycomb-like films are for the first time investigated as scaffold materials for human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium (hESC-RPE). By changing the conditions during film preparation, it was possible to produce films with homogeneous pore distribution and adequate pore size (3-5 μm), that is large enough to ensure high permeability but small enough to enable cell adherence and spreading. A brief dip-coating procedure with collagen type IV enabled the homogeneous adsorption of the protein to the walls and bottom of pores, increasing the hydrophilicity of the surface. hESC-RPE adhered and proliferated on all the collagen-coated materials, regardless of small differences in pore size. The differentiation of hESC-RPE was confirmed by the detection of specific RPE protein markers. These results suggest that the porous honeycomb films can be promising candidates for hESC-RPE tissue engineering, importantly enabling the free flow of ions and molecules across the material.

AB - Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in developed countries, characterised by the degeneration of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a pigmented cell monolayer that closely interacts with the photoreceptors. RPE transplantation is thus considered a very promising therapeutic option to treat this disease. In this work, porous honeycomb-like films are for the first time investigated as scaffold materials for human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelium (hESC-RPE). By changing the conditions during film preparation, it was possible to produce films with homogeneous pore distribution and adequate pore size (3-5 μm), that is large enough to ensure high permeability but small enough to enable cell adherence and spreading. A brief dip-coating procedure with collagen type IV enabled the homogeneous adsorption of the protein to the walls and bottom of pores, increasing the hydrophilicity of the surface. hESC-RPE adhered and proliferated on all the collagen-coated materials, regardless of small differences in pore size. The differentiation of hESC-RPE was confirmed by the detection of specific RPE protein markers. These results suggest that the porous honeycomb films can be promising candidates for hESC-RPE tissue engineering, importantly enabling the free flow of ions and molecules across the material.

KW - honeycomb films

KW - permeability

KW - pluripotent stem cells

KW - retinal pigment epithelium

KW - tissue engineering

U2 - 10.1002/jbm.a.35690

DO - 10.1002/jbm.a.35690

M3 - Article

VL - 104

SP - 1646

EP - 1656

JO - Journal of Biomedical Materials Research. Part A

JF - Journal of Biomedical Materials Research. Part A

SN - 1549-3296

IS - 7

ER -