Macromolecular Bioscience 2015-09-01

Substantial Differentiation of Human Neural Stem Cells Into Motor Neurons on a Biomimetic Polyurea.

Donghwa Yun, Young M Lee, Melissa R Laughter, Curt R Freed, Daewon Park

Index: Macromol. Biosci. 15 , 1206-11, (2015)

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Abstract

To find the first restorative treatment for spinal cord injury (SCI), researchers have focused on stem cell therapies. However, one obstacle is the lack of an implantable cell scaffold that can support efficient motor neuron (MN) differentiation and proliferation. We aimed to overcome this through the use of an RGD functionalized novel biomimetic polyurea, optimized to encourage efficient differentiation of MNs. Images taken after 14-days showed increased differentiation (∼40%) of hNSCs into MNs as well as increased cell count on the biomimetic polymer compared to PDL-Laminin coating, indicating that the RGD-polyurea provides a favorable microenvironment for hNSC survival, having promising implications for future SCI therapies. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.