Conducting Polymer Mediated Electrical Stimulation Induces Multilineage Differentiation with Robust Neuronal Fate Determination of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Abstract

Electrical stimulation is increasingly being used to modulate human cell behaviour for biotechnological research and therapeutics. Electrically conductive polymers (CPs) such as polypyrrole (PPy) are amenable to in vitro and in vivo cell stimulation, being easy to synthesise with different counter ions (dopants) to augment biocompatibility and cell-effects. Extending our earlier work, which showed that CP-mediated electrical stimulation promotes human neural stem cell differentiation, here we report using electroactive PPy containing the anionic dopant dodecylbenzenesulfonate (DBS) to modulate the fate determination of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Remarkably, the stimulation..