Journal: Bioactive Materials
Article Title: Microfluidic chip-integrated vascularized endometrial complexes: Mitochondrial function and paracrine crosstalk enhance regenerative potential
doi: 10.1016/j.bioactmat.2025.08.035
Figure Lengend Snippet: Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) analysis of the dynamically cultured EO and HEO complexes. a. UMAP visualization of 12 samples across four culture conditions: HEOe (HEO + estrogen), HEOp (HEO + estrogen + progesterone + cAMP), EOe (EO + estrogen), EOp (EO + estrogen + progesterone + cAMP). Endometrial epithelial cell clusters were annotated as main Epi (mEpi), ribosome-related Epi (rEpi), proliferative Epi (pEpi), and ciliated Epi (cEpi). Endometrial stromal cell clusters were annotated as main Str (mStr), ribosome-related Str (rStr), proliferative Str (pStr), and a second proliferative Str cluster (pStr2); the endothelial cell clusters included main endothelial cells (mEndo) and ribosome-related endothelial cells (rEndo). b–c. Relative abundance of epithelial (b) and stromal (c) clusters within their respective compartments across groups.]d. Comparison of the percentage of proliferative epithelial cells (pEpi, left panel) and proliferative stromal cells (pStr, right panel) between the dynamically cultured EO and HEO complexes under estrogen culture.e. Validation of enhanced proliferation in HEO complexes by flow cytometry. Significantly higher proportions of EdU + cells in epithelial cells of HEO vs. EO complexes under estrogen culture.f. Ligand-receptor pairs exhibiting significant differences in communication probability between HEOe and EOe complexes. Pathways of biological interest include WNT7A, WNT5A , BMP6 , and LGALS9. Dot size represents the maximum communication probability across compared groups; dot color indicates statistical significance ( P < 0.05). Cluster abbreviations: Epi (endometrial epithelial cells), Str (endometrial stromal cells) and Endo (endothelial cells).g. Circle plot showing the BMP6, LGALS9, WNT7A, WNT5A signaling networks among different cell types in EOe and HEOe complexes.
Article Snippet: The spheroids were stimulated with 100 μL of ECM with different treatments, including WNT5A (200 ng/mL, CSB-EP026138HU, CUSABIO, Wuhan, China), WNT7A (100 ng/mL, P06680 , Solarbio), DKK1 (200 ng/mL, C12B, Novoprotein), BOX5 (HY-123071A, MCE), anti-WNT5A neutralizing antibody (2 μg/mL, MAB645, R&D), anti-WNT7A neutralizing antibody (10 μg/mL, sc-365665, Santa Cruz), or VEGFA (10 ng/mL, C744, Novoprotein) as a positive control, by adding dropwise onto the collagen matrix.
Techniques: RNA Sequencing, Cell Culture, Comparison, Biomarker Discovery, Flow Cytometry