Basic Study
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World J Stem Cells. Aug 26, 2022; 14(8): 616-632
Published online Aug 26, 2022. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v14.i8.616
Changes of cell membrane fluidity for mesenchymal stem cell spheroids on biomaterial surfaces
Chui-Wei Wong, Hao-Wei Han, Shan-hui Hsu
Chui-Wei Wong, Hao-Wei Han, Shan-hui Hsu, National Taiwan University, Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
Shan-hui Hsu, National Health Research Institutes, Institute of Cellular and System Medicine, Miaoli 350, Taiwan
Shan-hui Hsu, National Taiwan University, Research and Development Center for Medical Devices, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
Author contributions: Wong CW and Han HW designed and coordinated the study, performed the experiments, acquired and interpreted the data, and wrote the original draft; Hsu Sh contributed to the conceptualization, investigation, review, editing and supervision; All authors approved the final version of the article.
Supported by National Taiwan University Core Consortium, No. NTU-CC-110L892501; and Ministry of Science and Technology, No. MOST 110-2218-E-002-037.
Institutional review board statement: The study does not meet the definition of a human subject and does not require an institutional review board statement review at National Taiwan University.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: No animal study in the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Shan-hui Hsu, PhD, Professor, National Taiwan University, Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, No. 1 Sec. 4 Roosevelt Road, Taipei 10617, Taiwan. shhsu@ntu.edu.tw
Received: March 5, 2022
Peer-review started: March 5, 2022
First decision: April 19, 2022
Revised: May 2, 2022
Accepted: July 8, 2022
Article in press: July 8, 2022
Published online: August 26, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Cell membrane fluidity is a critically important physical property for the regulation of cell behavior, but it has not been studied for the spheroid-forming cells so far.

Research motivation

In present study, we investigated the linkage between cell membrane fluidity and the morphological change from the three-dimensional (3D) spheroids generated by mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) on various culture substrates.

Research objectives

We tried to unveil the interaction of cells through membrane exchange in the homogeneous MSC spheroids and the heterotypic co-spheroids of MSCs/cancer cells and co-spheroids of MSCs/fibroblasts.

Research methods

We generated three-dimensional MSC spheroids on the surface of various culture substrates.

Research results

We discovered that vesicle-like bubbles randomly appeared on the outer layer of the MSC spheroids.

Research conclusions

Current findings provide a novel direction to elucidate the complicated physiological alterations for 3D spheroid-forming cells.

Research perspectives

These physiological changes of 3D spheroid-forming cells demonstrated that membrane fluidity may be altered significantly by direct cell-cell interaction on surfaces of biomaterial cell culture substrates. The membrane fluidity and translocation of components provide a new direction to elucidate the role of 3D cellular spheroid formation in the physical/physiological property changes of cells on the material interface.