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Poly-D-Lysine Matrix for Growing Animal-Free Stem Cells

Posted on August 26, 2008

Scientists have developed an alternative to animal-based materials such as Matrigel-coated plates for culturing the stem cells, which produce cells that are cells unsuitable for medical use. First, they identified a specific signaling pathway, called Rho-Rock, which the hESCs use during colony formation and which plays an important role in physical interactions between hESCs. When this pathway is blocked, researchers found that the normal colony formation of hESCs was considerably impaired, and that the hESCs maintained their pluripotency. In the study, Sato's group extensively screened variou...

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