Laser printing of pluripotent embryonal carcinoma cells

A technique by which to print patterns and multilayers of scaffolding and living cells could be used in tissue engineering to fabricate tissue constructs with cells, materials, and chemical diversity at the micron scale. We describe here studies using a laser forward transfer technology to print single-layer patterns of pluripotent murine embryonal carcinoma cells. This report focuses on verifying cell viability and functionality as well as the ability to differentiate cells after laser transfer. We find that when cells are printed onto model tissue scaffolding such as a layer of hydrogel, greater than 95% of the cells survive the transfer process and remain viable. In addition, alkaline comet assays were performed on transferred cells, showing minimal single-strand DNA damage from potential ultraviolet-cell interaction. We also find that laser-transferred cells express microtubular associated protein 2 after retinoic acid stimulus and myosin heavy chain protein after dimethyl sulfoxide stimulus, indicating successful neural and muscular pathway differentiation. These studies provide a foundation so that laser printing may next be used to build heterogeneous multilayer cellular structures, enabling cell growth and differentiation in heterogeneous three-dimensional environments to be uniquely studied.