Hu Yang, Chan Yin Mei, Judge Nicola G, Becker Matthew L, Willits Rebecca K
Department of Chemical Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
Department of Chemistry, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Aug 7;15(1):28971. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-13450-0.
Sexual dimorphism has been observed in many physiological and pathological responses, yet few studies incorporate both female and male experimental groups for preclinical work. For the development of biomaterial devices, in vitro studies are essential for design and optimization, and quantitative comparison of female and male cell migratory behavior is a crucial design consideration. In this work, we thoroughly examined sex-based migration on flat controls and aligned nanofiber scaffolds of various diameters using anomalous and random walk models. Male and female cells exhibited significantly different migration on flat substrates, with female cells having increased speed while male cells had higher persistence. Persistence increased with the introduction of aligned fiber topography for female cells, but only affected male cells on the highest fiber diameter. Speed along the axis of alignment differed between sexes on 1.2 and 1.8 µm fibers. Morphological analysis confirmed cell shape was a function of both sex and fiber size. These results provided critical information regarding sex-based cell migration, highlighting the importance of sex within in vitro studies for clinical device design.
在许多生理和病理反应中都观察到了性别二态性，但很少有临床前研究将雌性和雄性实验组都纳入其中。对于生物材料装置的开发，体外研究对于设计和优化至关重要，而对雌性和雄性细胞迁移行为的定量比较是一个关键的设计考量因素。在这项工作中，我们使用反常和随机游走模型，彻底研究了在扁平对照物以及各种直径的排列纳米纤维支架上基于性别的迁移情况。雄性和雌性细胞在扁平底物上表现出显著不同的迁移情况，雌性细胞速度增加，而雄性细胞具有更高的持续性。对于雌性细胞，随着排列纤维形貌的引入，持续性增加，但仅对最高纤维直径的雄性细胞有影响。在1.2微米和1.8微米的纤维上，沿排列轴的速度在性别之间存在差异。形态学分析证实细胞形状是性别和纤维大小两者的函数。这些结果提供了有关基于性别的细胞迁移的关键信息，突出了性别在临床设备设计的体外研究中的重要性。
