ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Jul 7. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b05519. [Epub ahead of print]

Efficient encapsulation and sustained release of basic fibroblast growth factor in nanofilm: extension of the feeding cycle of human induced pluripotent stem cell culture.

Han U, Park HH, Kim YJ, Park TH, Park JH, Hong J.

Abstract

Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) has an established pivotal function in biomedical engineering, especially for the human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). However, the limitation of bFGF is the ease of denaturation under normal physiological conditions, inducing loss of its activity. In this study, we designed multi-trilayered nanofilm composed of a repeating polycation/polyanion/bFGF structure, which has high loading efficiency and short build-up time. We also investigated that the loading and release of bFGF from the nanofilm with two parameters (counter-polyanion and film architectures). Then, we prepared the optimized nanofilm which maintains sustained bFGF level in physiological condition to apply the nanofilm to human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) culture. The amount of bFGF release from 12 trilayer nanofilm was 36.4 ng/cm2 and activity of bFGF encapsulated into the nanofilm was maintained (60%) until 72 hours during incubation at 37 °C. As a result, the iPSCs grown in the presence of the nanofilm with tridaily replacement of growth medium maintained undifferentiated morphology and expression levels of pluripotency marker proteins.