Neural differentiation of uniform-sized embryoid bodies derived from embryonic stem cells by microencapsulation in alginate bead

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Generation of neuroepithelial cells from embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is of great value for studying the mechanism of neural specification during gastrulation of embryos. The present study established a feasible microencapulation system that allows rapid and efficient derivation of an enriched population of neuron cells from uniformed embryoid body (EB) by using cell-chip-based technology. Furthermore, this study described a two-stage process for the efficient differentiation of mouse ESCs (mESCs) into neuron cells in alginate beads. The process begins by priming ESCs towards EB formation within micro-alginate beads and retinoic acid (RA) treatment for 4 days.
The alginate microencapsulated mESCs using a cell-chip system generated relatively uniform sized EBs, compared to conventional EBs (242 ∂ 80 vs. 100 ∂ 5 ？？m, respectively). After 4 days of RA treatment, the encapsulated EBs were efficiently differentiated into lineages of neuronal cells. Consequently, a significantly enriched population of neuron cells was generated from smaller and uniformed-sized of EBs, compared to EBs formed by conventional method (approximately 90% vs. 25%, respectively).
The results obtained from this study suggested that current alginate microencapsulation system could generate uniformed-size of EBs, and the EBs were able to differentiation into neuron cells, more efficiently than conventional method of EBs generation. This microencapsulation system may facilitate the investigation in vitro models of embryonic neurogenesis and provide potential application of cell-chip-based system to cell replacement therapy for neural diseases.