Effects of micro and nanotopography on hematopoietic cell fate decision

• Main Author: Lim, Kuan Chien.
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science::Biological sciences::Cytology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/45337
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The lack of an appropriate in vitro model is currently one of the major bottlenecks in studying hematopoietic stem cell behaviors. In vivo, hematopoietic cells reside in the bone marrow niche where a wealth of microenvironmental information comprising biochemical and biophysical topographical cues at the micro and nanoscale level provide extrinsic biosignals to initiate major intracellular signaling pathways which are implicated in directing the hematopoietic cell fate decision. It is hypothesized that an efficient in vitro delivery of the niche signals to hematopoietic cells is imperative to develop an artificial microenvironment to dictate the hematopoietic cell fates. In this work, the effects of the pioneering use of rare-earth nanoparticle-assisted (NaYF4: Er3+, Yb3+; average height of 2-300 nm) topographical substrates with self-assembled monolayer based micropatterns of 10 µm dot and 10 µm grating, on hematopoietic cell behaviors were evaluated using human erythroleukemia cell line K-562 as a representative cell model. To this end, K-562 cellular adhesion, proliferation, differentiation, cell cycle progression and morphological changes have been examined. Significantly higher cellular adhesion by up to five-fold after 6 hours of culture was observed compared to unpatterned controls.