Designing Animal-Free Organoids Based on Engineered Vegetables and Protein Crystals [VegFold]

该项目旨在开发下一代无动物支架，用于组织工程和再生医学，基于植物来源的材料。我们提出了一种策略，即植物叶片被脱细胞，并用作播种人类干细胞的支架。树叶的天然维管系统非常类似于人类的维管系统，它提供了一个有趣的平台，可以在上面生长可灌流的人类器官或微组织。然而，纤维素壁的细胞性很差，这限制了这种“植物方式”的潜力。我们建议探索一种创新的策略来提高蔬菜支架(VegFold)的效率，方法是通过工程植物产生所需的分子部分，使干细胞附着在纤维支架上并开始增殖。此外，我们计划整合工业合作伙伴Cell Guidance Systems的专利技术Pods，以支持支架的成骨分化潜力。

The project aims at developing the next generation of animal-free scaffolds for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine based on material of vegetal origin. We address a strategy where plant leaves are decellularized and used as a scaffold to seed human stem cells in. The natural vasculature of the leaf closely resembles the human one, and it offers an intriguing platform to grow perfusable human organoids or microtissues on. Nevertheless, the cellulose wall is inherently poorly cytogenic and this limits the potential of this "vegetal way".We propose to explore an innovative strategy to increase the efficiency of vegetable scaffolds (VegFolds) by engineering the plants to produce the required molecular moieties for the stem cells to adhere to the cellulose scaffold and start proliferating. Moreover, we plan to integrate PODS, a patented technology from the industrial partner Cell Guidance Systems, to support the osteogenic differentiation potential of the scaffold on a longer term.