Student Profile
Poornima Kolhar
Graduate Student Researcher
Education
- B.T., Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, 2006
Research Interests
Homing peptides are chemically synthesizable entities which bind specific receptors on cells and as a result possess the property of homing to specific tissues when injected into the blood stream. They can be either be conjugated to surfaces making them more biocompatible or to a cargo for targeted delivery. Here we propose the use of homing peptides to develop
- Extra-cellular matrix (ECM)-like surfaces for cell culture
- Deliver siRNA into the cytoplasm of specific cells.
Extra-cellular Matrix (ECM)-like Surfaces for Cell Culture
Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are currently cultured on feeder cells or on surfaces coated with ECM materials. The undefined nature and biological origin of these materials makes the therapeutic use of human ESCs (hESCs) challenging. Our goal is to design synthetic culture surfaces that will promote the adhesion and survival of hESCs, while also maintaining them in an undifferentiated state. Published literature shows that hESCs highly express the integrin receptors αvβ3 and αvβ51. Hence we propose to employ two RGD peptides develop a synthetic culture surface: a peptide similar to the commonly used linear RGD peptides, CRGDS, and a cyclic peptide, CRGDC, which has a higher affinity for integrins than the linear peptides. The peptides were chemically coupled to cell culture plates and hESCs were cultured on them. Preliminary results suggest that CRGDC provides better support for hESCs than CRGDS.
Human Embryonic Stem cells grown on completely synthetic surface. Figure shows the colony morphology and the staining for the pluripotency markers.
Figure shows the schematic of synthetic surfaces used.