用液态晶体控制胚胎干细胞区分大有希望

Liquid  crystals,  the  same  phase-shifting  materials  used  to  display  information  on  cell  phones,  monitors  and  other  electronic  equipment,  can  also  be  used  to  report  in  real  time  on  the  differentiation  of  embryonic  stem  cells.

Differentiation  is  the  process  by  which  embryonic  stem  cells  gradually  turn  into  function-specific  types  of  adult  cells  or  so-called  “cell  lineages”  including  skin,  heart  or  brain.

The  main  challenge  facing  stem  cell  research  is  that  of  guiding  differentiation  along  these  well-defined,  controlled  lineages.  Stem  cells  grown  in  the  laboratory  tend  to  differentiate  in  an  uncontrolled  manner,  resulting  in  a  mixture  of  cells  of  little  medical  use.

Now,  UW-Madison  researchers  at  the  NSF-funded  Materials  Research  Science  and  Engineering  Center  (MRSEC)  have  shown  that  by  straining  mechanically  the  cells  as  they  grow,  it  is  possible  to  reduce  significantly  and  almost  eliminate  the  uncontrolled  differentiation  of  stem  cells.

In  an  article  in  the  March  issue  of  Advanced  Functional  Materials,  the  team  reports  on  a  liquid  crystal-based  cell  culture  system  that  promises  new  ways  of  achieving  real-time  control  over  interactions  between  synthetic  materials  and  human  embryonic  stem  cells,  including  the  possibility  of  straining  embryonic  stem  cells  as  they  grow.

“Stem  cells  tend  to  be  smaller  and  have  a  slightly  more  compact  shape  than  the  differentiated  cells,”  says  Chemical  and  Biological  Engineering  Assistant  Professor  Sean  Palecek.  “Differentiated  cells  appear  to  be  much  more  spread  and  they  appear  to  exert  different  levels  of  force  on  the  matrix  in  which  they  are  grown.  That  force  can  be  read  to  a  liquid  crystal.  Through  simple  changes  of  liquid  crystal  texture  and  color,  our  cell  culture  system  is  able  to  report,  in  real  time,  the  cell  interactions  with  the  underlying  support  on  which  they  are  grown.”

Currently,  researchers  have  several  methods  of  monitoring  cell  differentiation.  The  easiest,  says  Palecek,  is  to  just  look  at  the  cells  and  use  cell  morphology  as  a  cue.  A  more  accurate  method  uses  molecular  markers.  Antibodies  are  placed  against  these  markers  to  determine  if  they  bind  to  the  cell.  That  system,  while  more  accurate,  does  not  provide  real  time  data  and  cells  often  have  to  be  killed  in  order  to  analyze  the  markers.   (责任编辑：泉水)

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用液态晶体控制胚胎干细胞区分大有希望