Differential environmental spatial patterning (δESP) recreates proximal-distal axial pattrens in embryonic stem cell colonies

Abstract

Understanding embryonic development has significant implications in stem cell research and applications as well as drug testing. Developmental biology is still largely studied using animal models because of their inherent complexity, but are expensive and difficult to manipulate. Here, we develop a two-step, multi-component micropatterning technique (termed Differential Environmental Spatial Patterning, δESP) technique as an in vitro means to generate developmentally relevant differentiation patterns. We demonstrated that δESP could emulate proximal-distal differentiation patterns in an early developing embryo in embryonic stem cell colonies. δESP potentially paves the way for more biomimicry in vitro models as animal surrogates. Copyright © (2011) by the Chemical and Biological Microsystems Society.