Scalable culture of human pluripotent stem cells in 3D

Abstract

The promise of human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) therapies is ever-increasing, with the rapid proliferation of reports over the past several years demonstrating homogeneous and efficient differentiation of hPSCs to clinically relevant cell types (1⇓–3). Such discoveries have renewed the enthusiasm and motivation for the acceleration of clinical trials using hPSC-derived cells to treat nervous system injuries and ocular degeneration, as well as diabetes and cardiac diseases in the near future. On the path to clinical implementation of hPSC therapies, the need for scalable culture technologies capable of producing sufficient quantities of cells becomes of paramount importance, as the proposed therapies demonstrate efficacy in human patients. However, despite several significant advances in recent years establishing defined, xeno-free conditions for hPSC culture (4⇓–6), numerous challenges still remain to be overcome, including advanced 3D platforms capable of efficient, facile, and robust expansion, differentiation, and retrieval of hPSCs.