Unraveling molecular mechanism underlying biomaterial and stem cells
interaction during cell fate commitment using high throughput data
analysis
Abstract
Stem cell (SC) differentiation towards somatic cells has proven to be an
effective technique in the understanding and progression of regenerative
medicine. Despite improvements, concerns regarding the efficiency of
differentiation and the differences between SC products and their in
vivo counterparts must be addressed. Biomaterials that mimic endogenous
growth conditions represent one recent method used to improve the
quality and efficiency of SC differentiation. Here, we aim to use
bioinformatics approaches to accomplish two aims: 1) determine the
effect of different biomaterials on SC growth and differentiation, and
2) understand the effect of cell of origin on the differentiation
potential of multipotent SCs. First, we demonstrate that the
dimensionality (2D versus 3D) and the degradability of biomaterials
affects the way that the cells are able to grow and differentiate at the
transcriptional level. Additionally, the particular cell of origin is an
important factor in determining the response of SCs to same biomaterial
transcriptionally. Our data demonstrates the ability of bioinformatics
to understand novel molecular mechanisms and context by which SCs are
most efficiently able to differentiate. These results and strategies may
suggest proper combinations of biomaterials and SCs to achieve high
differentiation efficiency and functionality of desired cell types.