Recreating the natural cell niche is key to successful cultivation. The physical, topological, and biochemical expression of the different laminin isoforms in the BM is heterogeneous and tissue-specific.
Human recombinant laminin 111, Biolaminin 111 LN (LN111), is important during early epithelial development and differentiation of the epiblast. Laminin 111 is up-regulated and widely expressed during embryogenesis, vital for the development of an embryo. However, its distribution after birth is restricted to only a few tissues, such as the brain and kidney. Laminin 111 is commonly used as a general attachment protein for most cell types in vitro and LN111 has been used successfully for hepatic and neural differentiation.Â
Biolaminin 111 LN (LN111) supports the survival, proliferation, and differentiation of many different cell types in vitro, although many of those cultivated cell types would not encounter the protein naturally in vivo. Instead, you should match your specific cell type to the laminin naturally expressed by this cell which leads to improved cell culture.
During development, Riechert’s membrane supporting the extraembryonic trophoblasts express laminin 111. Reichert’s membrane is essential for epiblast differentiation, which is essential for the formation of the three embryonic germ layers by pluripotent cells in the inner cell mass.
In the adult, laminin α1 chain expression is relatively restricted and is only present in some epithelial basement membranes, and primarily found in tissues such as the eye, liver, and kidney, whereas hardly expressed at all in endothelial, adipose, nervous, and muscle tissues (Ekblom, 2003; Virtanen, 2000).
It is unknown why laminin 111 can exert all these major biological effects on such a wide selection of cell types, but one explanation is that, depending on the cell type, laminin-111 can not only induce different cell signaling cascades but as all laminins also co-signal with various growth factors.
Laminin 111 is the laminin isoform present in the tumor extract sold under the trade name Matrigel. Matrigel is produced by mouse Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm (EHS) sarcoma cells and is an undefined mix of extracellular proteins of animal tumor origin.
However, by coating your plate with recombinant Biolaminin 111 (LN111) you support your cells with a defined and animal component-free substrate. Therefore, LN111 enables better control of your cell-matrix and experiments.
Laminin 111 is the main component in Matrigel that is used for stem cell culture. By using matrigel for human stem cells, laminin 111 initiates differentiation of stem cells instead of efficient self-renewal of stem cells. This can be seen as a spontaneous differentiation of pluripotent stem cells in Matrigel or LN111 coated cell culture dishes.
For pluripotent stem cells, Biolaminin 521 culture substrates should instead be used for human stem cell culture and Biolaminin 511 for mouse stem cell culture. This is because laminin 521 and laminin 511 are the natural laminins for hES and iPS cells and does not cause spontaneous differentiation. Instead, they lead to efficient expansion and growth of pluripotent stem cells.
