Development of large-scale size-controlled adult pancreatic progenitor cell clusters by an inkjet-printing technique

The generation of transplantable β-cells from pancreatic progenitor cells (PPCs) could serve as an ideal cell-based therapy for diabetes. Because the transplant efficiency depends on the size of islet-like clusters, it becomes one of the key research topics to produce PPCs with controlled cluster sizes in a scalable manner. In this study, we used inkjet printing to pattern biogenic nanoparticles, i.e., mutant tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), with different spot sizes to support the formation of multicellular clusters by PPCs. We successfully achieved TMV particle patterns with variable features and sizes by adjusting the surface wettability and printing speed. The spot sizes of cell-adhesive TMV mutant arrays were in the range of 50-150 μm diameter. Mouse PPCs were seeded on the TMV-RGD (arginine-glycine-aspartate)-patterned polystyrene (PS) substrate, which consists of areas that either favor (TMV-RGD) or prohibit (bare PS) cell adhesion. The PPCs stably attached, proliferated on top of the TMV-RGD support, thus resulting in the formation of uniform and confluent PPC clusters. Furthermore, the aggregated PPCs also maintained their multipotency and were positive for E-cadherin, indicating that the formation of cell-cell junctions is critical for enhanced cell-cell contact.