| 研究実績の概要 |
Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) hold high potential for regenerative therapies due to their unique properties of indefinite self-renewal and differentiation to almost any type of cells. Specifically, cardiomyocytes (CMs) can now be derived from hiPSCs at high efficiency under xeno-free condition toward heart repairing. However, the presence of even small numbers of non-cardiac cells, particularly the undifferentiated cells, in the resulted cell population, is problematic as they may grow and differentiate in an uncontrollable manner in the patient, giving rise to high risk of teratoma formation. Previously, magnetic-activated cell sorting (MACS) and Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) have been used to separate undifferentiated hPSCs from target cells. However those methods are expensive and complicated. In this study, we are challenging to remove undifferentiated hPSCs for derived cardiomyocytes using micro-engineered platform. Herein we report a microfluidic device with integrated and surface functionalised fishnet-like structures for specific cell capture. With the help of a flow derivation surface pattern, cells in solution are forced to cross the fishnet-like structure, resulting in high efficiency and selective retention of a chosen cell population. A suspension of hiPSCs spiked in culture medium or hiPSC derived CMs containing medium was used for devices function validation. We found a hiPSC capture rate as high as 80% and a remarkable increase of the CM population rate in the recovered suspension without affecting the cell viability.
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