The present invention provides a medium composition containing deacylated gellan gum or a salt thereof, and an acidic polysaccharide or a salt thereof capable of maintaining a random coil state in a divalent metal cation medium and cross-linking via a divalent metal ion, and permitting culture of a cell or a tissue in suspension, wherein a concentration of the deacylated gellan gum or a salt thereof in the medium composition is 0.002-0.01 (w/v) %, a concentration of the acidic polysaccharide or a salt thereof is 0.004-0.1 (w/v) %, and a mass ratio of the acidic polysaccharide or a salt thereof to the deacylated gellan gum or a salt thereof is not less than 1. In addition, the present invention provides a method for isolating a cell or tissue from a culture preparation containing the medium composition and cell or tissue, including applying a shear force to the culture preparation.

The disclosure relates to compositions and superstructures comprising peptide amphiphiles. In some aspects, the disclosure relates to compositions and superstructures comprising host and guest peptide amphiphiles, wherein the host and guest moieties of the peptide amphiphiles interact via non-covalent interactions to form a supramolecular assembly, such a superstructure. In some aspects, the superstructure further comprises a bioactive moiety. Suitable bioactive moieties may be selected to promote cell growth, migration, and/or differentiation.

Efficient stem cell delivery into biomaterials using capillary driven encapsulation are disclosed herein where stem/progenitor and/or tissue specific cells are rapidly and efficiently seeded via capillary driven encapsulation into a porous scaffold for cell delivery in the skin or any other organ. The rapid capillary force approach maximizes both seeding time and efficiency by combining hydrophobic, entropic and capillary forces to promote active, ‘bottom-up’ cell engraftment. This methodology uses micro domain patterned biopolymers in a porous dry gel to generate capillary pressure to move a viscous stem cell mix from a hydrophobic reservoir into the polymer matrix to promote active cell seeding within the entire gel volume.

Provided is a cell culture method including introducing a factor into cells in a cell culture vessel, and culturing the cells into which the factor has been introduced in the same cell culture vessel. Also provided is a mononuclear cell collection method including treating blood to prepare a treated blood from which erythrocytes have been at least partially removed, diluting the treated blood, causing sedimentation of mononuclear cells contained in the diluted treated blood, removing the supernatant from the diluted treated blood, and collecting the mononuclear cells.

An object is to prepare an intestinal organoid having a characteristic close to the small intestine of a living body, from a pluripotent stem cell. An intestinal organoid is prepared from a pluripotent stem cell, by the following steps of: (1) differentiating the pluripotent stem cell into an endoderm-like cell; (2) differentiating the endoderm-like cell obtained in step (1) into an intestinal stem cell-like cell; (3) culturing the intestinal stem cell-like cell obtained in step (2) in the presence of an epidermal growth factor, a fibroblast growth factor, a TGF β receptor inhibitor, a GSK-3 β inhibitor, and a ROCK inhibitor; (4) culturing the cell obtained in step (3) to form a spheroid; and (5) differentiating the spheroid formed in step (4) to form an intestinal organoid, wherein the differentiation includes culturing in the presence of an epidermal growth factor, a BMP inhibitor, and a Wnt signal activator. Also, a plane culture system is prepared by subjecting the cells constituting the intestinal organoid formed in step (5) to plane culture in the presence of an epidermal growth factor and a TGF β receptor inhibitor. A highly functional evaluation system having the villi structure is constructed by using air-liquid interface culture in the plane culture.

The invention discloses a method of manufacturing polysaccharide beads, comprising the steps of: i) providing a water phase comprising an aqueous solution of a polysaccharide; ii) providing an oil phase comprising at least one water-immiscible organic solvent and at least one oil-soluble emulsifier; iii) emulsifying the water phase in the oil phase to form a water-in-oil (w/o) emulsion; and iv) inducing solidification of the water phase in the w/o emulsion, wherein the organic solvent is an aliphatic or alicyclic ketone or ether.

Methods for obtaining multipotent Apelin receptor-positive lateral plate mesoderm cells, mesenchymal stem cells, and mesangioblasts under serum-free conditions are disclosed.

Methods of generating functional human brown adipocytes, comprising exposing human stem cells, progenitor cells, or white adipocytes to culture with an differentiation cocktail that comprises one or more browning agents (e.g., one or more macromolecular crowders), and optionally one or more adipogenic agents, are described, as are populations of human brown adipocytes generated by the methods, and uses for the populations. Methods of generating functional human brown adipocytes in an individual, such as by administering a pharmaceutical composition comprising an differentiation cocktail, are also described.

The present invention provides a technique which enables organization of bone marrow cells by a simple method in a short period of time.

A method for preparing a bone marrow cell aggregate, comprising adding a liquid containing a bone marrow cell population to a medium containing a swellable material and culturing the bone marrow cell population in the presence of the swellable material. A method for reassembling a bone marrow tissue, comprising adding a liquid containing a bone marrow cell population to a medium containing a swellable material and culturing the bone marrow cell population in the presence of the swellable material.

According to common knowledge in the art, it has been considered difficult to reorganize once disintegrated bone marrow tissue without changing the cell composition (that is, without adding any adherent cell or extracellular matrix which will work as a “connecting material (binder)”). Indeed, it was impossible to aggregate bone marrow cells by conventional methods. As a result of its achievement, the present invention changes such conventional thought and results and provides a major breakthrough technique pertaining to 3D culture of bone marrow cells. It has also been confirmed that culture of a bone marrow-like tissue reassembled by the method of the present could be continued up to day 14 in the MC medium.

Thus, provided herein are pericyte progenitor cells (e.g., isolated pericyte progenitor cells), methods for generating pericyte progenitors in clinically relevant numbers for various applications applying macromolecular crowding during cell culture, and methods of using the pericyte progenitor cells.