An animal component free bioprocess to synthesize 3D human matrix scaffolds using mesenchymal stromal cells
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Basement membrane is a specialized extracellular matrix (ECM) that compartmentalizes epithelial and endothelial tissues and provides essential structural and signaling cues for tissue organization. While fibrillar collagens (Col) of the interstitial matrix (e.g., Col I and Col III) are widely used in tissue modeling, the networking collagens that scaffold basement membrane, including human Col IV and Col VI, remain difficult to access. Commercial basement membrane surrogates such as Matrigel® are derived from murine tumors and are ill-defined, dilute, variable, and incompatible with animal-free biomanufacturing. Thus, there is a critical need for human-derived basement membrane matrices that are free of xenogenic contaminants and do not rely on animal agriculture. Here, we investigated whether human mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) could serve as a platform to produce self-assembling basement membrane components under chemically defined, xeno-free conditions. MSCs from placental, umbilical cord, bone marrow, and adipose tissues were cultured as three-dimensional spheroids and adherent multilayered sheets. Confocal imaging of whole-mount, decellularized spheroid matrices revealed complex networks of fibronectin and Col IV with topological and organizational features characteristic of native basement membrane. Perinatal MSCs produced distinct matrix architectures consisting of apical fibronectin sheets underlaid by continuous Col IV networks. Time-resolved imaging of umbilical cord MSC–derived matrix sheets demonstrated a reproducible sequence of basement membrane assembly that parallels developmental tissue organization. Together, these findings demonstrate that human MSCs, cultured entirely without animal-derived components, can synthesize functional basement membrane proteins that self-assemble into ordered, tissue-like scaffolds. This work establishes MSCs as a scalable, sustainable, and cruelty-free platform for the manufacturing of human basement membrane matrices for bioengineering and regenerative medicine applications.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".