Journal
BIOMATERIALS
Volume 33, Issue 21, Pages 5198-5205Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2012.03.062
Keywords
Tissue engineering; Retinal stem and progenitor cells; Endothelial cells; 3D and 2D co-culture
Funding
- Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)
- Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR)
- Japanese long-term study abroad scholarship
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Cell cell interactions are critical to understanding functional tissues. A number of stem cell populations have been shown to receive key regulatory information from endothelial cells (ECs); however, the role of ECs in the retinal stem and progenitor cell (RSPC) niche has been largely unexplored. To gain greater insight into the role of ECs on RSPC fate, a three-dimensional (3D) co-culture model, incorporating cell cell interactions, was designed by covalently-modifying agarose hydrogels with growth factors and cell-adhesive peptides in defined volumes. Therein ECs adopted tubular-like morphologies similar to those observed in vivo, but not observed in two-dimensional (2D) cultures. Unexpectedly, ECs inhibited proliferation and differentiation of RSPCs, revealing, for the first time, the possible role of ECs on RSPC fate. This 3D hydrogel scaffold provides a simple, reproducible and versatile method with which to answer biological questions related to the cellular microenvironment. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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