Bogyu Choi
CHA University, South Korea
Title: Influence of microenvironment engineering on cell reprogramming
Biography
Biography: Bogyu Choi
Abstract
The physical microenvironment has been reported to direct cell fate. Here, we found that the physical microenvironment, stiffness of hydrogels promotes the reprogramming of mouse embryonic fibroblasts into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). We prepared cell culture substrates of various stiffnesses (0.1, 1, 4, 10, and 20 kPa) using a polyacrylamide hydrogel. We found that culture on a soft hydrogel plays an important role in inducing cellular reprogramming into iPSCs via activation of mesenchymal-to-epithelial transition and enhancement of stemness marker expression. These results suggest that physical signals at the interface between cell and substrate can be used as a potent regulator to promote cell fate changes associated with reprogramming into iPSCs, which may lead to effective and reproducible iPSC production.