ORCID Profile
0000-0003-0579-6370
Current Organisation
Nanyang Technological University College of Engineering
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Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1039/C7NR03093B
Abstract: Yolk shell particle-based bone filler forms a porous structure in situ and delivers bioactive BMP-2 to enhance bone defect healing.
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Date: 2018
DOI: 10.1039/C8TB00397A
Abstract: The differentiation of MSCs into musculoskeletal tissues has been demonstrated using an electrospun, bi-layered micro particle mesh scaffold (BMMS), that can simultaneously host and release up to three bioactive agents.
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Date: 2013
DOI: 10.1039/C2CC38779D
Abstract: Silk scaffolds having biomimetic hierarchical porous structures were achieved by carefully tuning liquid-liquid separation in regenerated silk fibroin solutions. Such scaffolds show greatly enhanced cellular responses.
Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
Date: 12-03-2014
DOI: 10.1021/LA500048Z
Abstract: Cell growing behavior is significantly dependent on the surface chemistry of materials. SU-8 as an epoxy-based negative photoresist is commonly used for fabricating patterned layers in lab-on-a-chip devices. As a hydrophobic material, SU-8 substrate is not favorable for cell culture, and cell attachment on native SU-8 is limited attributed to poor surface biocompatibility. Although physical adsorption of proteins could enhance the cell adhesion, the effect is not durable. In this work, SU-8 surface chemistry is modified by immobilizing fibronectin (FN) and collagen type I (COL I) covalently using (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES) and cross-linker glutaraldehyde (GA) to increase surface biofunctionality. The effectiveness of this surface treatment to improve the adhesion and viability of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is investigated. It is found that the wettability of SU-8 surface can be significantly increased by this chemical modification. In addition, the spreading area of MSCs increases on the SU-8 surfaces with covalently conjugated matrix proteins, as compared to other unmodified SU-8 surface or those coated with proteins simply by physical adsorption. Furthermore, cell proliferation is dramatically enhanced on the SU-8 surfaces modified under the proposed scheme. Therefore, SU-8 surface modification with covalently bound matrix proteins assisted by APTES+GA provides a highly biocompatible interface for the enhanced adhesion, spreading, and proliferation of MSCs.
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 28-12-2017
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2011
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.ACTBIO.2015.05.023
Abstract: Cell sheet engineering has been exploited as an alternative approach in tissue regeneration and the use of stem cells to generate cell sheets has further showed its potential in stem cell-mediated tissue regeneration. There exist vast interests in developing strategies to enhance the formation of stem cell sheets for downstream applications. It has been proved that stem cells are sensitive to the biophysical cues of the microenvironment. Therefore we hypothesized that the combinatorial substratum properties could be tailored to modulate the development of cell sheet formation and further influence its multipotency. For validation, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) of different combinatorial substratum properties (including stiffness, roughness and wettability) were created, on which the human bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) were cultured to form cell sheets with their multipotency evaluated after induced differentiation. The results showed that different combinatorial effects of these substratum properties were able to influence BMSC behavior such as adhesion, spreading and proliferation during cell sheet development. Collagen formation within the cell sheet was enhanced on substrates with lower stiffness, higher hydrophobicity and roughness, which further assisted the induced chondrogenesis and osteogenesis, respectively. These findings suggested that combinatorial substratum properties had profound effects on BMSC cell sheet integrity and multipotency, which had significant implications for future biomaterials and scaffold designs in the field of BMSC-mediated tissue regeneration.
Publisher: AIP Publishing
Date: 11-2014
DOI: 10.1063/1.4903762
Abstract: The living cells are arranged in a complex natural environment wherein they interact with extracellular matrix and other neighboring cells. Cell-cell interactions, especially those between distinct phenotypes, have attracted particular interest due to the significant physiological relevance they can reveal for both fundamental and applied biomedical research. To study cell-cell interactions, it is necessary to develop co-culture systems, where different cell types can be cultured within the same confined space. Although the current advancement in lab-on-a-chip technology has allowed the creation of in vitro models to mimic the complexity of in vivo environment, it is still rather challenging to create such co-culture systems for easy control of different colonies of cells. In this paper, we have demonstrated a straightforward method for the development of an on-chip co-culture system. It involves a series of steps to selectively change the surface property for discriminative cell seeding and to induce cellular interaction in a co-culture region. Bone marrow stromal cells (HS5) and a liver tumor cell line (HuH7) have been used to demonstrate this co-culture model. The cell migration and cellular interaction have been analyzed using microscopy and biochemical assays. This co-culture system could be used as a disease model to obtain biological insight of pathological progression, as well as a tool to evaluate the efficacy of different drugs for pharmaceutical studies.
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Date: 11-07-2022
Abstract: Inveterbral disc degeneration is a significant musculoskeletal disease that brings huge burden of pain, disability, psychological and social consequences to the affected population worldwide with treatments that only alleviate the pain but does not address the underlying biological problems. For the past decades, tissue engineering of the disc has been investigated with annulus fibrosus (AF) been one of the complicated disc component to be engineered. With the limited source of annulus cells, bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) have been frequently investigated as a potental cell candidate to develop an AF-like tissue which often require a multi-disciplinary effort to achieve. The extracellular matrix of AF is largely make up of collagen and proteoglycan which is still unclear how these matrix proteins could influence the BMSCs towards constructing a AF-like tissue. In this study, we adopted a coiled hydrogel microfiber that resembles the micro-architecture of the native AF tissue to encapsulate BMSCs and incorporated collagen type 1 and hyaluronic acid which later demonstrated that the co-presence of hyaluronic acid and collagen could potentially regulated AF-associated biomarkers and protease expression which are critical for later development of an engineered AF tissue construct.
Publisher: World Scientific Pub Co Pte Ltd
Date: 06-2014
DOI: 10.1142/S2339547814500137
Abstract: Keloid is a long-term dermatological scarring disease characterized by disfiguring lesions resulting from overgrowth of dense fibrous tissue. Current therapeutics are ineffective, require clinical supervision and can be costly. This study investigated the use of microneedle technology in the self-management of keloid lesions. Specifically, a microneedle patch comprising of polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) and encapsulating 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) has been developed for transdermal delivery. The microneedle patches showed requisite mechanical strength (hardness 45 ± 11 MPa, elastic modulus 0.66 ± 0.16 GPa) and were able to puncture porcine epidermis. The choice of PEGDA substrate enabled conformability to non-planar anatomical regions (e.g. elbow), with about 50% of the loaded 5-FU released during the first 12 hours. Thereafter, the microneedle efficacy was evaluated on in vitro keloid fibroblast culture models, where 5-FU loaded microneedles effectively abolished keloid fibroblast proliferation activity. In summary, we have developed a microneedle device with a good potential as an effective, economical and self-applied therapy for keloid scars.
Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
Date: 23-09-2013
DOI: 10.1021/AM402903E
Abstract: The surface chemistry of materials has an interactive influence on cell behavior. The optimal adhesion of mammalian cells is critical in determining the cell viability and proliferation on substrate surfaces. Because of the inherent high hydrophobicity of a poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) surface, cell culture on these surfaces is unfavorable, causing cells to eventually dislodge from the surface. Although physically adsorbed matrix proteins can promote initial cell adhesion, this effect is usually short-lived. Here, (3-aminopropyl)triethoxy silane (APTES) and cross-linker glutaraldehyde (GA) chemistry was employed to immobilize either fibronectin (FN) or collagen type 1 (C1) on PDMS. The efficiency of these surfaces to support the adhesion and viability of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) was analyzed. The hydrophobicity of the native PDMS decreased significantly with the mentioned surface functionalization. The adhesion of MSCs was mostly favorable on chemically modified PDMS surfaces with APTES + GA + protein. Additionally, the spreading area of MSCs was significantly higher on APTES + GA + C1 surfaces than on other unmodified/modified PDMS surfaces with C1 adsorption. However, there were no significant differences in the MSC spreading area on the unmodified/modified PDMS surfaces with FN adsorption. Furthermore, there was a significant increase in cell proliferation on the PDMS surface with APTES + GA + protein functionalization as compared to the PDMS surface with protein adsorption only. Therefore, the covalent surface chemical modification of PDMS with APTES + GA + protein could offer a more biocompatible platform for the enhanced adhesion and proliferation of MSCs. Similar strategies can be applied for other substrates and cell lines by appropriate combinations of self-assembly monolayers (SAMs) and extracellular matrix proteins.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2012
DOI: 10.1016/J.MCE.2012.07.002
Abstract: Apelin is an adipokine secreted by adipocytes. Co-expression of apelin and apelin receptor (APJ) in adipocytes implies the autocrine regulations of apelin on adipocyte functions through yet unknown molecular mechanisms. In the present study, we provide evidence that apelin, through its interaction with APJ receptor, inhibits adipogenesis of pre-adipocytes and lipolysis in mature adipocytes. The detailed molecular pathways underlying apelin signaling is proposed based on our experimental observations. Specifically, we show that apelin suppresses adipogenesis through MAPK kinase/ERK dependent pathways. And by preventing lipid droplet fragmentation, apelin inhibits basal lipolysis through AMP kinase dependent enhancement of perilipin expression and inhibits hormone-stimulated acute lipolysis through decreasing perilipin phosphorylation. Apelin induced decrease of free fatty acid release can be attributed to its dual inhibition on adipogenesis and lipolysis. This study suggests that the autocrine signaling of apelin may serve as a novel therapeutic target for obesity and other metabolic disorders.
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
Date: 2017
DOI: 10.1039/C6BM00863A
Abstract: Hydrogel based technologies has been extensively employed in both exploratory research and clinical applications to address numerous existing challenges in the regeneration of articular cartilage and intervertebral disc.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2020
Publisher: Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health)
Date: 04-2011
Location: Australia
Location: Singapore
No related grants have been discovered for Yon Jin Chuah.