Abstract

3D Cell-Material Micro-Tissue Devices in Application of ES/iPS Cells for Drug Screening/Toxicology and Cell Therapy

Norio Nakatsuji, Chief Advisor, Stem Cell & Device Laboratory, Inc. (SCAD); Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University

SCAD is a start-up company founded in 2014 based on the integration of stem cell technology and nanotechnology/micro-engineering developed at Kyoto University.  We are currently focusing on the iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, with possible addition of neurons and hepatocytes. Cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC-CMs) are promising materials for drug screening/toxicology and cell therapy. However, there are two major issues: immaturity of hPSC-CMs and instability of cardiac cellular function. To overcome these issues, we use two technologies: the robust cardiac differentiation method and aligned nanofibers as a culture scaffold. Our cardiac differentiation method can efficiently generate cardiomyocytes from any hPSC lines under cytokine-free defined condition. The hPSC-CMs seeded on nanofiber scaffolds formed 3D multilayered structures (Micro-Tissues), which show upregulated expression of cardiac maturation marker genes and enhanced and stable cardiac cell functions. Our micro-tissue devices are easy to handle and highly useful for drug screening/toxicology assays.