Simplified microenvironments and reduced cell culture size influence the cell differentiation outcome in cellular microarrays

RODRIGUEZ SEGUI, S. A.; ORTUÑO, M. J.; VENTURA, F.; MARTINEZ, E.; SAMITIER, J.

JOURNAL OF MATERIALS SCIENCE-MATERIALS IN MEDICINE

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2013 vol. 24 p. 189 - 198

0957-4530

Cellular microarrays present a promising toolfor multiplex evaluation of the signalling effect of substrate-immobilized factors on cellular differentiation. Inthis paper, we compare the early myoblast-to-osteoblastcell commitment steps in response to a growth factorstimulus using standard well plate differentiation assays orcellular microarrays. Our results show that restraints on thecell culture size, inherent to cellular microarrays, impairthe differentiation outcome. Also, while cells growing onspots with immobilised BMP-2 are early biased towards theosteoblast fate, longer periods of cell culturing in themicroarrays result in cell proliferation and blockage ofosteoblast differentiation. The results presented here raiseconcerns about the efficiency of cell differentiation whenthe cell culture dimensions are reduced to a simplifiedmicrospot environment. Also, these results suggest thatfurther efforts should be devoted to increasing the complexityof the microspots composition, aiming to replacesignalling cues missing in this system.