Functional living biointerfaces to direct cell-material interaction

This thesis deals with the development of a living biointerface between synthetic substrates and living cells to engineer cell-material interactions for tissue engineering purposes. This living biointerface is made of Lactococcus lactis, a non-pathogenic lactic bacteria widely used as starter in the dairy industry and, recently, in the expression of heterologous proteins in applications such as oral vaccine delivery or membrane-bound expression of proteins. L. lactis has been engineered to display the III7? 10 fragment of the human fibronectin, fused to GFP as reporter protein. Fibronectin is a ubiquitous protein present in the extracellular matrix, a complex mesh of structural and adhesive proteins which serve as mechanical support and development niche for cells of a wide variety of tissues. This fragment contains two important sequences, RGD and PHSRN. RGD is an adhesive sequence that interacts with a wide range of integrins, membrane-bound receptors that play a role in cellular processes such as adhesion, migration, proliferation and differentiation. On the other hand, PHSRN binds synergistically with RGD to some integrins such as ? 5s1 and others, increasing the specificity of this interaction. Genetically engineered L. lactis has been thoroughly characterized to test its capabilities as a living interface. This strain was engineered to express the FN III7? 10 -GFP fragment covalently linked to the cell wall and biological activity and expression levels of this fragment were assessed with techniques such as Western blot, ELISA and immunofluorescence. Moreover, this strain still holds the ability to develop biofilms, communities of sessile, attached bacteria to abiotic surfaces which helps greatly in the generation of a stable monolayer of bacteria between synthetic substrates and mammalian cells. Mammalian cell behaviour in response to the expressed fibronectin fragment on L. lactis membrane was also assessed. Several cell lines were tested, such as Fn? /Fn? and NIH3T3 fibroblasts, C2C12 myoblasts and human bone-marrow derived mesenchymal cells. This living biointerface was found to trigger cell adhesion and FAK phosphorylation, a marker for intracellular integrin-mediated signalling in all of the tested cell lines. It also triggered myogenic differentiation on C2C12 cells. In hMSCs, the cell-wall exposed fibronectin fragment was found to enhance the phosphorylation of ERK1/2, a kinase involved in the MAPK pathway, which is deeply involved in a multitude of cellular processes related to differentiation, proliferation and migration. Nevertheless, this thesis is a proof of concept that this novel system can be further exploited to express almost any desired protein or small molecule to help in the development of new tissues from progenitor cells. These molecules can be either secreted in the medium or displayed in the membrane, and can also be constitutively expressed or in-demand, due to the great flexibility of L. lactis and the wide variety of expression systems available. This interface based on living bacteria establishes a new paradigm in surface functionalization for biomedical engineering applications.