Clonal culturing of human embryonic stem cells on laminin-521/E-cadherin matrix in defined and xeno-free environment

This article provides scientific evidence that LN-521 is the optimal matrix for the generation and culture of human pluripotent stem cells. Laminin-521 successfully recreates the biologically relevant hPSC milieu in vitro and via integrin binding, laminin-521 induces the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, promoting survival and robust self-renewal of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). Clonal derivation and single-cell expansion of hPSCs on laminin-521.This article provides scientific evidence that LN-521 is the optimal matrix for the generation and culture of human pluripotent stem cells. It is described in detail how this physiologically relevant laminin establishes genetically stable hESC lines in an efficient, defined, xeno-free and feeder-free procedure, suitable for stem cell banking and regenerative medicine applications. It is even possible to derive embryonic stem cells from a single blastomere, thereby avoiding the ethical dilemma associated with the destruction of donated embryos. LN-511 binds the same integrin but the α6β1 integrin mediating effects of LN-521 is much stronger than that of LN-511 which results in a more robust PSC expansion on LN-521.