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Engineering the Stem Cell Niche and the Differentiative Micro- and Macroenvironment: Technologies and Tools for Applying Biochemical, Physical and Structural Stimuli and Their Effects on Stem Cells

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Stem Cell Engineering

Abstract

In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in stem cell research, given their promising medical applications in cell-based tissue regeneration, drug testing and of course basic research. A decade of restless experimental and clinical research has demonstrated that the routine use of stem cells to repair solid organs is not at hand in spite of recent excessively enthusiastic announcements in the press and even serious scientific journals. Indeed, biologists only partially comprehend cell-differentiating mechanisms and have mapped only a few of the extrinsic and intrinsic factors involved. Even less is understood the complex qualitative, quantitative and temporal orchestration of these factors in the different steps featuring the whole differentiating process.

Most of the current research is centred on the identification of soluble ligands which regulate and control signalling pathways, and our knowledge on the role of the physical and structural microenvironment is still scarce. In this chapter, we focus only on cues which can be controlled externally using mechanical and structural parameters, and so can be easily defined using appropriate engineering and design. Firstly, the influence of the single parameters on cell behaviour is described, and then we discuss how technological tools such as biomaterials, scaffolds and bioreactors, as well as well-constructed and defined multiscale classification models can be best employed to engineer artificial biomimetic in vitro systems.

“Da mihi ubi consistam,…et terram caelumque movebo”

Give me where to stand… and I will move the earth

(Archimedes, 287 b.c.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata and National Institute for Cardiovascular Research (INRC), Bologna, Italy

    Paolo Di Nardo & Marilena Minieri

  2. Interdepartmental Research Centre “E. Piaggio”, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Arti Ahluwalia

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  1. Paolo Di Nardo
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  2. Marilena Minieri
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  3. Arti Ahluwalia
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Correspondence to Arti Ahluwalia .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. FH Aachen, Standort Jülich, Ginsterweg 1, Jülich, 52428, Germany

    Gerhard M. Artmann

  2. Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, GKT School of Biomedical Sciences, King's College London, London, SE11UL, United Kingdom

    Stephen Minger

  3. Inst. Neurophysiologie, Universitätsklinikum Köln, Robert-Koch-Str. 39, Köln, 50931, Germany

    Jürgen Hescheler

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Di Nardo, P., Minieri, M., Ahluwalia, A. (2011). Engineering the Stem Cell Niche and the Differentiative Micro- and Macroenvironment: Technologies and Tools for Applying Biochemical, Physical and Structural Stimuli and Their Effects on Stem Cells. In: Artmann, G., Minger, S., Hescheler, J. (eds) Stem Cell Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11865-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11865-4_2

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