Squeezing cells accelerates division and growth

, Beijing, October 16 (Intern reporter Zhang Jiaxin) the closer people are to each other, the more opportunities to exchange ideas and information. There is also a "chemical reaction" when the cells are close to each other. A new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston Children's Hospital has found that physically squeezing cells and their inclusions can cause them to grow and divide faster than normal. The study opens up new ideas for organ culture and regenerative medicine organ transplantation, and the paper was published online on the 13th in the journal Cell Stem Cells.
While it sounds counter-common sense to squeeze organisms to grow, the team explains that the role of squeezing is to "screw" water out of cells, allowing proteins and other cell components to accumulate more closely together. At the same time, proteins can gather along specific signaling paths, helping cells maintain stem cell status, which allows cells to grow and divide quickly.
to study the effects of physical extrusion on cells, the researchers used gels of different weights to squeeze different types of cells. Reported that this can make a significant change in cell size, volume compression to the original volume of about 10%-30%. They looked through a microscope and found that cells hardened as the pressure increased, and the squeezed cells contained more tightly and less activity.
, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his colleagues bred human colon-like organs in petri dishes and "squeezed" them by injecting polymers into them. The injection of polymers increases the osmotic pressure around each type of organ, forcing moisture out of the cells. The researchers observed that specific proteins involved in activating the Wnt path are tightly stacked together and are more likely to activate the signaling path and its genes that regulate growth.
results show that squeezed organs grow larger and faster than unstrustered organs, and have more stem cells on their surfaces. This proves that extrusion does affect organ growth, and that cell behavior can change depending on how much water it contains.
Guo Ming said that simply squeezing cells to promote their "stem cellization" can guide cells to rapidly culture organs, such as artificial intestines, colons, etc., which not only provides us with a way to study organ function and test candidate drugs for various diseases, but also can be used in organ transplantation in regenerative medicine.
, researchers will continue to explore cell "squeezing" as a way to accelerate organ-like growth. They may also use these artificial organs to test new personalized drugs.