Spontaneous Natural Fibrillogenesis on Charged Surfaces
Abstract
In the developing field of tissue engineering, conditions must resemble the natural tissue environment. The interaction between the cells and their surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) has been shown to be vital for cell proliferation and adhesion. One major obstacle to study normal ECM formation has been that, even though some of the proteins, such as collagen, self-assemble spontaneously, others, such as fibronectin and elastin, do not. They have been observed in their natural fibrillar state only on cell membranes. Hence the structures of the ECM have not been previously reproduced in vitro. We have recently demonstrated that spontaneous fibrillogenesis of fibronectin (Fn) can be induced on highly charged surfaces, such as sulfonated polystyrene (SPS). Furthermore, once the protein formed fibrils, they self-assembled into a large periodic network. We also demonstrated that a similar lattice was produced naturally by cardiac fibroblast cells when deposited directly onto the same polyelectrolyte coated surfaces. ECM production and organization were shown to be significantly affected by the presence of external compounds such as iron, glucose¡ Since we can vary each of the components individually, we can the study their effect on the cell morphology and expression. Hence through these studies we can develop a more fundamental understanding of the factors responsible for some pathologies, such as diabetes.
- Publication:
-
APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- March 2003
- Bibcode:
- 2003APS..MAR.K9005P