Virginia Research Day 2025

Undergraduate Student Research Biomedical

01 The effect of Biolaminin in horse Schwann cells in vitro culture

Juliana Lopez-Vivas; Taylor Dickson; Kelly C. S. Roballo Corresponding author: julianalvivas@vt.edu

Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, Virginia Tech

Full-length laminins are essential for cells in the body; therefore, they make a real difference in the cell functionality of ex vivo cell cultures. Biolaminin products offer a biologically relevant matrix that mimics the authentic extra-cellular matrix-cell interaction. In this project, we tested how biolaminin could improve horse Schwann cell culture, for that two types of laminins were tested, and cell growth and overall cell quality were tracked. The first biolamin tested was biolaminin 521 LN, which is the natural laminin for cells, reliably facilitating the self-renewal of cells in a chemically defined, feeder-free, and animal-origin-free stem cell culture system. Biolaminin 521 enables efficient single-cell

cells and progenitor cells. Laminin products are scientifically proven to increase cell proliferation rate with stable phenotype and facilitate the use of low passage cell lines for the production of clinically relevant cell numbers of differentiated cell types. Our preliminary result showed that horse Schwann cells growth rate were 2-folds more than control cultures in the first 30 days of culture, and laminin 211 were better than 521. As our next step, we are planning to test these laminins in other cell types, and also test the cell viability of horse Schwann cell when in contact with laminin.

passaging of genetically stable and pluripotent stem cells without the need for any apoptosis inhibitors, ensuring superior quality for your cells and studies. Second, we tested the laminin 211, which is a major laminin isoform synthesized by Schwann cells in the developing peripheral nervous system, important for axonal elongation/neurite extension and myelinization. Laminins containing the α2-chain (such as laminin 211) are expressed in the ventricular zone extra cellular matrix in the developing mouse central nervous system. Since laminins are known to contribute to the stem cell niche in the brain, this suggests that laminin 211 could play an important functional role in the regulation of neural stem

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