Florida State University researchers have developed a promising strategy for producing therapeutic particles in stem cells that could help patients with neurological diseases such as The hit or multiple sclerosis.
Yan Li, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering at FAMU-FSU Technical University, obtains stem cell cultures from the incubator in her lab. Image credit: Mark Wallheisier / FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
The technique developed by researchers from FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and FSU College of Medicine combines three-dimensional development platforms with wave motion. Research published on Journal of extracellular vesicles.
Particles secreted by cells – called extracellular vesicles – are chemical messengers that influence cell activity. They can be used to deliver drugs to target organs inside the body. Improving the production and efficiency of these particles is a major area of research.
The FSU researchers combined two techniques to produce these particles. The first is to grow stem cells in 3D cultures instead of two-dimensional cultures. The second is to suspend growing cells on a platform that is shaken back and forth in gentle motions, creating tiny waves that help deliver oxygen, glucose and other nutrients to the cells. Their combined approach caused the stem cells to produce twice as many granules as cells cultured on the 2D platform.
“Just as the flow of a river moves more matter than a static lake, our use of dynamic waves in the development of these stem cells will deliver more nutrients to the cells than they would in a still lake. with them just suspended in culture,” said senior author Yan Li, an associate professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at FAMU-FSU University of Technology.
The extracellular vesicles from the 3D cultured stem cells also exhibited more therapeutic properties than the 2D version. They contain more microscopic ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules that help protect the brain against neurological diseases and spinal cord injuries, and they also have more anti-inflammatory proteins.
This work could also help treat patients with neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. These diseases disrupt the cell-to-cell interactions needed to repair the brain. Extracellular vesicles harvested from stem cells produced that mimic human neurons could provide molecules that tell the patient’s damaged cells to initiate repair.
“The vesicles contain a lot of microRNAs and proteins, and they change the way the cell functions,” says Li. “They don’t say or write a word but signal. They come up with what looks like packages – beads. They send those things, others receive them, and they change what those cells do. The engineering approach is to make the cells deliver the desired signals”.
Source: Florida State University
