Hung Kun-Che, Jeng U-Ser, Hsu Shan-Hui
National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China.
ACS Macro Lett. 2015 Sep 15;4(9):1056-1061. doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.5b00597. Epub 2015 Sep 3.
Fractal dimension () is an index to describe the irregular continuous structure by quantifying the complexity. The concept of fractals has been employed to describe the complicated structure of polymer gel and human tissue. This study examined the effect of on cell proliferation and stem cell differentiation in six polymer hydrogels with ranging from 1.2 to 2.1. It was observed that fibroblasts and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) grew faster in hydrogels with higher . Moreover, hydrogels with a fractal structure of ≤ 1.4, ≥1.6, and ≥1.8 promoted the neural, osteogenic, and chondrogenic differentiation of MSCs, respectively. The fractal structure of gel can modulate cell proliferation and fate, which provides an insight into designing the appropriate fractal and molecular structure of polymer hydrogel for biomedical applications.
分形维数（）是通过量化复杂性来描述不规则连续结构的一个指标。分形的概念已被用于描述聚合物凝胶和人体组织的复杂结构。本研究考察了在六种分形维数范围为1.2至2.1的聚合物水凝胶中，其对细胞增殖和干细胞分化的影响。观察到成纤维细胞和间充质干细胞（MSCs）在分形维数较高的水凝胶中生长更快。此外，分形结构分别为≤1.4、≥1.6和≥1.8的水凝胶分别促进了MSCs的神经、成骨和软骨分化。凝胶的分形结构可以调节细胞增殖和细胞命运，这为设计适用于生物医学应用的聚合物水凝胶的分形和分子结构提供了思路。
