Jeroen Eyckmans

Effect of Adhesion and Substrate Stiffness on Differentiation of Pluripotent Stem Cells

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Recent advances in mechanobiology have demonstrated that substrate stiffness and adhesive ligands regulate differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells into bone, fat or cartilage cells. It is, however, unclear to what extent substrate mechanics and adhesion regulate differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) into cardiomyocytes. To address this question, the REU will evaluate cardiac differentiation of human iPSCs that are seeded on dextran hydrogels with different stiffnesses and are coated with different extracellular matrix proteins. To assess cardiac differentiation, the REU will employ immunohistochemistry to stain the cells for cardiac muscle proteins that indicate the maturation state of the cardiac cells.

LABORATORY MENTOR
Jourdan Ewoldt

RESEARCH GOALS
The ultimate goal of this project is to define the optimal combination of substrate stiffness and coating of the substrate with ECM molecules to optimally differentiate iPSCs into cardiomyocytes.

LEARNING GOALS
• Make dextran hydrogels with different mechanical properties.
• Coat substrates with different extracellular matrix proteins.
• Culture human iPSC cells and differentiate the cells into cardiomyocytes (with help of mentor).
• Assess cardiac differentiation of human IPSCs.

TIMELINE
Week 1: Getting acquainted with lab
Week 2: Learn the basics of cell culture and making of dextran hydrogels
Week 3: Set up first round of experiments
Week 4: Set up second round of experiments
Weeks 5-6: Stop and analyze both experiments
Weeks 6-10: Troubleshoot what didn’t work and repeat the experiments.

Learn more about Jeroen Eyckmans on his faculty page.