Efficient Expansion of Dissociated Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Using a Synthetic Substrate.

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including human embryonic stem cells and human-induced pluripotent stem cells, are a renewable cell source for a wide range of applications in regenerative medicine and useful tools for human disease modeling and drug discovery. For these purposes, large numbers of high-quality cells are essential. Recently, we showed that a biological substrate, recombinant E8 fragments of laminin isoforms, sustains long-term self-renewal of hPSCs in defined, xeno-free medium with dissociated single-cell passaging. Here, we describe a modified culture system with similar performance to efficiently expand hPSCs under defined, xeno-free conditions using a non-biological synthetic substrate.