Wang Tiankuo, Li Yiran, Wang Juan, Xu Ying, Chen Yifang, Lu Zilin, Wang Wei, Xue Bin, Li Ying, Cao Yi
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure, Key Laboratory of Intelligent Optical Sensing and Manipulation, Ministry of Education, Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
Institute of Advanced Materials and Flexible Electronics (IAMFE), School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, 210044 Nanjing, China.
ACS Biomater Sci Eng. 2020 Dec 14;6(12):6800-6807. doi: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.0c01485. Epub 2020 Nov 30.
Efficient cell capture and release methods are important for single-cell analysis of pathological samples. It requires not only strong cell binding but also mild cell release to maximize the number of collected cells while maintaining their viability. Here, we report a smart cell capture and release system based on self-assembling adhesive peptide nanofibers. We installed a versatile surface binding motif, 3, 4-dihydroxyphenylalanine to the C-terminus of a self-assembling peptide. We show that the designed peptide can self-assemble at physiological pH to establish strong cell and substrate binding. The binding strength is dramatically reduced upon the dissembling of the peptide fibers triggered by raising the pH to slightly basic. We demonstrate the efficient capture of four different cells using this system. The capture rates are comparable to fibrin glue and the released cells retain higher viability than those released by enzymatic digestion approaches. Given that this method is highly efficient, biocompatible, and easy to implement, we anticipate that this approach can be widely applied to cell capture and release for single cell analysis and cell therapy.
高效的细胞捕获和释放方法对于病理样本的单细胞分析至关重要。这不仅需要强大的细胞结合能力，还需要温和的细胞释放方式，以在保持细胞活力的同时最大化收集到的细胞数量。在此，我们报道了一种基于自组装粘附肽纳米纤维的智能细胞捕获和释放系统。我们在自组装肽的C末端安装了一个通用的表面结合基序，即3,4-二羟基苯丙氨酸。我们表明，设计的肽在生理pH值下可以自组装，从而建立强大的细胞与底物结合。当通过将pH值提高到略碱性来触发肽纤维的解聚时，结合强度会显著降低。我们使用该系统展示了对四种不同细胞的高效捕获。捕获率与纤维蛋白胶相当，并且释放的细胞比通过酶消化方法释放的细胞保留更高的活力。鉴于该方法高效、生物相容性好且易于实施，我们预计这种方法可广泛应用于单细胞分析和细胞治疗的细胞捕获和释放。
