ABMES

Cell therapy using endothelial cells (ECs) has great potential for the treatment of congenital disorders, such as hemophilia A. Cell sheet technology utilizing a thermoresponsive culture dish is a promising approach to efficiently transplant donor cells. In this study, a new method to prepare terminus-selective heparin-immobilized thermoresponsive culture surfaces is developed to facilitate the preparation of EC sheets. Alkynes are introduced to the reducing terminus of heparin via reductive amination. Cu-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) facilitates efficient immobilization of the terminus of heparin on a thermoresponsive surface, resulting in a higher amount of immobilized heparin while preserving its function. Heparin-immobilized thermoresponsive surfaces prepared using CuAAC exhibit good adhesion to human endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFCs). In addition, upon further binding to basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) on heparin-immobilized surfaces, increased proliferation of ECFCs on the surface is observed. The confluent ECFC monolayer cultured on bFGF-bound heparin-immobilized thermoresponsive surfaces exhibits relatively high fibronectin accumulation and cell number and detaches at 22 °C while maintaining the sheet-like structure. Because heparin has an affinity for several types of bioactive molecules, the proposed method can be applied to facilitate efficient cultures and sheet formations of various cell types.