Injectable biomimetic liquid crystalline scaffolds enhance muscle stem cell transplantation.

Muscle stem cells are a potent cell population dedicated to efficacious skeletal muscle regeneration, but their therapeutic utility is currently limited by mode of delivery. We developed a cell delivery strategy based on a supramolecular liquid crystal formed by peptide amphiphiles (PAs) that encapsulates cells and growth factors within a muscle-like unidirectionally ordered environment of nanofibers. The stiffness of the PA scaffolds, dependent on amino acid sequence, was found to determine the macroscopic degree of cell alignment templated by the nanofibers in vitro. Furthermore, these PA scaffolds support myogenic progenitor cell survival and proliferation and they can be optimized to induce cell differentiation and maturation. We engineered an in vivo delivery system to assemble scaffolds by injection of a PA solution that enabled coalignment of scaffold nanofibers with endogenous myofibers. These scaffolds locally retained growth factors, displayed degradation rates matching the time course of muscle tissue regeneration, and markedly enhanced the engraftment of muscle stem cells in injured and noninjured muscles in mice.

Sulfated glycopeptide nanostructures for multipotent protein activation.

Biological systems have evolved to utilize numerous proteins with capacity to bind polysaccharides for the purpose of optimizing their function. A well-known subset of these proteins with binding domains for the highly diverse sulfated polysaccharides are important growth factors involved in biological development and tissue repair. We report here on supramolecular sulfated glycopeptide nanostructures, which display a trisulfated monosaccharide on their surfaces and bind five critical proteins with different polysaccharide-binding domains. Binding does not disrupt the filamentous shape of the nanostructures or their internal ß-sheet backbone, but must involve accessible adaptive configurations to interact with such different proteins. The glycopeptide nanostructures amplified signalling of bone morphogenetic protein 2 significantly more than the natural sulfated polysaccharide heparin, and promoted regeneration of bone in the spine with a protein dose that is 100-fold lower than that required in the animal model. These highly bioactive nanostructures may enable many therapies in the future involving proteins.

Nucleation and Growth of Ordered Arrays of Silver Nanoparticles on Peptide Nanofibers: Hybrid Nanostructures with Antimicrobial Properties.

Silver nanoparticles have been of great interest as plasmonic substrates for sensing and imaging, catalysts, or antimicrobial systems. Their physical properties are strongly dependent on parameters that remain challenging to control such as size, chemical composition, and spatial distribution. We report here on supramolecular assemblies of a novel peptide amphiphile containing aldehyde functionality in order to reduce silver ions and subsequently nucleate silver metal nanoparticles in water. This system spontaneously generates monodisperse silver particles at fairly regular distances along the length of the filamentous organic assemblies. The metal-organic hybrid structures exhibited antimicrobial activity and significantly less toxicity toward eukaryotic cells. Metallized organic nanofibers of the type described here offer the possibility to create hydrogels, which integrate the useful functions of silver nanoparticles with controllable metallic content.

Enhanced potency of cell-based therapy for ischemic tissue repair using an injectable bioactive epitope presenting nanofiber support matrix.

The translation of cell-based therapies for ischemic tissue repair remains limited by several factors, including poor cell survival and limited target site retention. Advances in nanotechnology enable the development of specifically designed delivery matrices to address these limitations and thereby improve the efficacy of cell-based therapies. Given the relevance of integrin signaling for cellular homeostasis, we developed an injectable, bioactive peptide-based nanofiber matrix that presents an integrin-binding epitope derived from fibronectin, and evaluated its feasibility as a supportive artificial matrix for bone marrow-derived pro-angiogenic cells (BMPACs) used as a therapy in ischemic tissue repair. Incubation of BMPACs with these peptide nanofibers in vitro significantly attenuated apoptosis while enhancing proliferation and adhesion. Pro-angiogenic function was enhanced, as cells readily formed tubes. These effects were, in part, mediated via p38, and p44/p42 MAP kinases, which are downstream pathways of focal adhesion kinase. In a murine model of hind limb ischemia, an intramuscular injection of BMPACs within this bioactive peptide nanofiber matrix resulted in greater retention of cells, enhanced capillary density, increased limb perfusion, reduced necrosis/amputation, and preserved function of the ischemic limb compared to treatment with cells alone. This self-assembling, bioactive peptide nanofiber matrix presenting an integrin-binding domain of fibronectin improves regenerative efficacy of cell-based strategies in ischemic tissue by enhancing cell survival, retention, and reparative functions.

Zebrafish heart regeneration occurs by cardiomyocyte dedifferentiation and proliferation.

Although mammalian hearts show almost no ability to regenerate, there is a growing initiative to determine whether existing cardiomyocytes or progenitor cells can be coaxed into eliciting a regenerative response. In contrast to mammals, several non-mammalian vertebrate species are able to regenerate their hearts, including the zebrafish, which can fully regenerate its heart after amputation of up to 20% of the ventricle. To address directly the source of newly formed cardiomyocytes during zebrafish heart regeneration, we first established a genetic strategy to trace the lineage of cardiomyocytes in the adult fish, on the basis of the Cre/lox system widely used in the mouse. Here we use this system to show that regenerated heart muscle cells are derived from the proliferation of differentiated cardiomyocytes. Furthermore, we show that proliferating cardiomyocytes undergo limited dedifferentiation characterized by the disassembly of their sarcomeric structure, detachment from one another and the expression of regulators of cell-cycle progression. Specifically, we show that the gene product of polo-like kinase 1 (plk1) is an essential component of cardiomyocyte proliferation during heart regeneration. Our data provide the first direct evidence for the source of proliferating cardiomyocytes during zebrafish heart regeneration and indicate that stem or progenitor cells are not significantly involved in this process.

Transcriptomics approach to investigate zebrafish heart regeneration.

In mammals, after a myocardial infarction episode, the damaged myocardium is replaced by scar tissue with negligible cardiomyocyte proliferation. Zebrafish, in contrast, display an extensive regenerative capacity, as they are able to restore completely lost cardiac tissue after partial ventricular amputation. Although questions about the early signals that drive the regenerative response and the relative role of each cardiac cell type in this process still need to be answered, the zebrafish is emerging as a very valuable tool to understand heart regeneration and to devise strategies that may be of potential value to treat human cardiac disease. Here, we performed a genome-wide transcriptome profile analysis focusing on the early time points of zebrafish heart regeneration and compared our results with those of previously published data. Our analyses confirmed the differential expression of several transcripts and identified additional genes whose expression is differentially regulated during zebrafish heart regeneration. We validated the microarray data by conventional and/or quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). For a subset of these genes, their expression pattern was analyzed by in-situ hybridization and shown to be upregulated in the regenerating area of the heart. Our results offer new insights into the biology of heart regeneration in the zebrafish and, together with future experiments in mammals, may be of potential interest for clinical applications.

Disease-corrected haematopoietic progenitors from Fanconi anaemia induced pluripotent stem cells.

The generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells has enabled the derivation of patient-specific pluripotent cells and provided valuable experimental platforms to model human disease. Patient-specific iPS cells are also thought to hold great therapeutic potential, although direct evidence for this is still lacking. Here we show that, on correction of the genetic defect, somatic cells from Fanconi anaemia patients can be reprogrammed to pluripotency to generate patient-specific iPS cells. These cell lines appear indistinguishable from human embryonic stem cells and iPS cells from healthy individuals. Most importantly, we show that corrected Fanconi-anaemia-specific iPS cells can give rise to haematopoietic progenitors of the myeloid and erythroid lineages that are phenotypically normal, that is, disease-free. These data offer proof-of-concept that iPS cell technology can be used for the generation of disease-corrected, patient-specific cells with potential value for cell therapy applications.