Collective cell behaviors manipulated by synthetic DNA nanostructures

Xiaochen Wang; Xiwen Xing; Shuang Lu; Guangle Du; Yi Zhang; Yubin Ren; Yulong Sun; Jing Sun; Qihui Fan; Kai Liu; Fan Wang; Fangfu Ye

doi:10.1016/j.fmre.2022.01.031

Collective cell behaviors manipulated by synthetic DNA nanostructures

Fundam Res. 2022 Feb 18;3(5):809-812. doi: 10.1016/j.fmre.2022.01.031. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Xiaochen Wang^{1

2

3

4}, Xiwen Xing⁵, Shuang Lu⁶, Guangle Du^{2

3

4}, Yi Zhang⁷, Yubin Ren⁷, Yulong Sun^{2

3

4}, Jing Sun⁸, Qihui Fan¹, Kai Liu⁷, Fan Wang⁶, Fangfu Ye^{1

2

3

4

9}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
² Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou 325001, China.
³ School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁴ Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Wenzhou 325001, China.
⁵ Department of Biotechnology, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, China.
⁷ Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁸ Institute of Organic Chemistry I, University of Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081 Ulm, Germany.
⁹ Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan 523808, China.

Abstract

Cellular collective motion in confluent epithelial monolayers is involved in many processes such as embryo development, carcinoma invasion, and wound healing. The development of new chemical strategies to achieve large-scale control of cells' collective motion is essential for biomedical applications. Here a series of DNA nanostructures with different dimensions were synthesized and their influences on cells' collective migration and packing behaviors in epithelial monolayers were investigated. We found that the framed DNA nanoassemblies effectively reduced the cells' speed by increasing the rigidity of cells, while the lipid-DNA micelles had a more pronounced effect on cells' projection area and shape factor. These DNA nanostructures all significantly enhanced the dependence of cells' speed on their shape factor. Our results indicate that cells' mobility in monolayers can be manipulated by chemical intercellular interactions without any genetic intervention. This may provide a new chemical strategy for tissue engineering and tumor therapy.

Keywords: Cell monolayer; Collective motion; DNA materials; Nanomaterial; Tissue engineering.