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Record W4417327857 · doi:10.1038/s41467-025-66037-8

Biomimetic fractal topography enhances podocyte maturation in vitro

2025· article· en· W4417327857 on OpenAlexafffund
Chuan Liu, Praful Aggarwal, Karl T. Wagner, Shira Landau, Teng Cui, Xin Song, Laleh Shamaei, Naimeh Rafatian, Yimu Zhao, Sonia Rodríguez‐Ramírez, Keith Morton, Elizabeth Virlee, Chen Yu Li, Dawn Bannerman, Simon Pascual‐Gil, Sargol Okhovatian, Anastasia Radisic, Sergi Clotet‐Freixas, Teodor Veres, Mohtada Sadrzadeh, Tobin Filleter, Ulrich Broeckel, Ana Konvalinka, Milica Radisic

Bibliographic record

VenueNature Communications · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldMedicine
TopicRenal Diseases and Glomerulopathies
Canadian institutionsHeart and Stroke FoundationSt. Joseph’s Healthcare HamiltonSystems, Applications & Products in Data Processing (Canada)Structural Genomics ConsortiumUniversity of AlbertaToronto General HospitalUniversity of TorontoUniversity Health Network
FundersCanadian Institutes of Health ResearchKillam TrustsNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of CanadaGovernment of CanadaAdditional Ventures
KeywordsFractalFractal dimensionGlomerulusCellIn vivoCell growthIn vitroPhenotype

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

In their native environment, tissues are organized into intricate fractal structures, rarely recapitulated in their culture in vitro. The extent to which fractal (self-similar) patterns that resemble complex topography in vivo influence cell maturation remain inadequately elucidated. Yet, the application of fractal topographical stimulation may address the challenge of improving the differentiated cell phenotype in vitro. Here, we show fractality in the kidney glomerulus and podocytes, branching highly differentiated cells within the glomerulus. Biomimetic fractal patterns derived from glomerular histology are used to generate topographical (2.5-D) substrates for cell culture. Podocytes grown on fractal topography exhibit higher expression of functional markers and enhanced cell polarity. RNA sequencing suggests podocytes’ enhanced ECM deposition and remodeling on fractal versus flat topography, and enhanced maturation accompanied by stress on fractal versus non-fractal topography. The incorporation of fractal topography into standard well plates may serve as a user-friendly bioengineered platform for high-fidelity cell culture. Liu and colleagues demonstrate that biomimetic fractal patterns derived from glomerular histology can enhance the maturation of podocytes (highly differentiated glomerular cells) that are grown in culture. This work presents a bioengineered platform for improved cell culture fidelity.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not 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.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.000
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.000
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Bench or experimental · Consensus signal: Bench or experimental
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.001
Threshold uncertainty score0.002

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0000.000
Science and technology studies0.0000.000
Scholarly communication0.0000.000
Open science0.0000.000
Research integrity0.0000.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0010.000

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.

Opus teacher head0.009
GPT teacher head0.320
Teacher spread0.310 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designBench or experimental
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

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".

Quick stats

Citations2
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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Same venueNature CommunicationsSame topicRenal Diseases and GlomerulopathiesFrench-language works237,207