Pérez-Rodríguez Sandra, Tomás-González Esther, García-Aznar José Manuel
Multiscale in Mechanical and Biological Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain.
Aragon Institute of Engineering Research, University of Zaragoza, 50018 Zaragoza, Spain.
Bioengineering (Basel). 2018 Jun 12;5(2):45. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering5020045.
Fibroblast migration to damaged zones in different tissues is crucial to regenerate and recuperate their functional activity. However, fibroblast migration patterns have hardly been studied in disease terms. Here, we study this fundamental process in dermal and cardiac fibroblasts by means of microfluidic-based experiments, which simulate a three-dimensional matrix in which fibroblasts are found in physiological conditions. Cardiac fibroblasts show a higher mean and effective speed, as well as greater contractile force, in comparison to dermal fibroblasts. In addition, we generate chemical gradients to study fibroblast response to platelet derived growth factor (PDGF) and transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) gradients. Dermal fibroblasts were attracted to PDGF, whereas cardiac fibroblasts are not. Notwithstanding, cardiac fibroblasts increased their mean and effective velocity in the presence of TGF-β. Therefore, given that we observe that the application of these growth factors does not modify fibroblasts’ morphology, these alterations in the migration patterns may be due to an intracellular regulation.
成纤维细胞迁移到不同组织的受损区域对于再生和恢复其功能活动至关重要。然而，从疾病角度对成纤维细胞迁移模式的研究却很少。在此，我们通过基于微流控的实验来研究真皮和成纤维细胞中的这一基本过程，该实验模拟了成纤维细胞在生理条件下所处的三维基质。与真皮成纤维细胞相比，心脏成纤维细胞表现出更高的平均速度和有效速度，以及更大的收缩力。此外，我们生成化学梯度来研究成纤维细胞对血小板衍生生长因子（PDGF）和转化生长因子β（TGF-β）梯度的反应。真皮成纤维细胞被PDGF吸引，而心脏成纤维细胞则不然。尽管如此，在TGF-β存在的情况下，心脏成纤维细胞的平均速度和有效速度会增加。因此，鉴于我们观察到这些生长因子的应用并未改变成纤维细胞的形态，迁移模式的这些改变可能是由于细胞内调节所致。
