Artificial membrane-binding proteins stimulate oxygenation of stem cells during engineering of large cartilage tissue

Restricted oxygen diffusion can result in central cell necrosis in engineered tissue, a problem that is exacerbated when engineering large tissue constructs for clinical application. Here we show that pre-treating human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) with synthetic membrane-active myoglobin-polymer–surfactant complexes can provide a reservoir of oxygen capable of alleviating necrosis at the centre of hyaline cartilage. This is achieved through the development of a new cell functionalization methodology based on polymer–surfactant conjugation, which allows the delivery of functional proteins to the hMSC membrane. This new approach circumvents the need for cell surface engineering using protein chimerization or genetic transfection, and we demonstrate that the surface-modified hMSCs retain their ability to proliferate and to undergo multilineage differentiation. The functionalization technology is facile, versatile and non-disruptive, and in addition to tissue oxygenation, it should have far-reaching application in a host of tissue engineering and cell-based therapies

Real-time measurements of the redox states of c-type cytochromes in electroactive biofilms: a Confocal Resonance Raman Microscopy study

Confocal Resonance Raman Microscopy (CRRM) was used to probe variations of redox state of c-type cytochromes embedded in living mixed-culture electroactive biofilms exposed to different electrode polarizations, under potentiostatic and potentiodynamic conditions. In the absence of the metabolic substrate acetate, the redox state of cytochromes followed the application of reducing and oxidizing electrode potentials. Real-time monitoring of the redox state of cytochromes during cyclic voltammetry (CV) in a potential window where cytochromes reduction occurs, evidenced a measurable time delay between the oxidation of redox cofactors probed by CV at the electrode interface, and oxidation of distal cytochromes probed by CRRM. This delay was used to tentatively estimate the diffusivity of electrons through the biofilm. In the presence of acetate, the resonance Raman spectra of young (10 days, j = 208 +/- 49 mu A cm(-2)) and mature (57 days, j = 267 +/- 73 mu A cm(-2)) biofilms show that cytochromes remained oxidized homogeneously even at layers as far as 70 mu m from the electrode, implying the existence of slow metabolic kinetics that do not result in the formation of a redox gradient inside the biofilm during anode respiration. However, old biofilms (80 days, j = 190 +/- 37 mu A cm(-2)) with thickness above 100 mu m were characterized by reduced catalytic activity compared to the previous developing stages. The cytochromes in these biofilm were mainly in the reduced redox state, showing that only aged mixed-culture biofilms accumulate electrons during anode respiration. These results differ substantially from recent observations in pure Geobacter sulfurreducens electroactive biofilms, in which accumulation of reduced cytochromes is already observed in thinner biofilms, thus suggesting different bottlenecks in current production for mixed-culture and G. sulfurreducens biofilms