Adapting liquid crystal techniques to introduce anisotropy in cell cultures

Cell cultures grown in vitro tend to be highly uniform structures, but in vivo cell cultures often exhibit a high degree of anisotropy, which means that direction guides their physical properties. For some cell types, such as the endothelial cells that line blood vessels or the cardiomyocytes that make up heart tissue, their orientation is central to their function. Replicating their behaviors or responses to medication in vitro is therefore impossible with conventional culturing techniques.

Luo et al. explored techniques and approaches to introduce orientational order into 2D and 3D cellular constructs. They focused on adopting techniques from liquid crystal processing, another domain where anisotropy is commonplace.

“We can learn quite a bit about the interaction amongst the cells by leveraging liquid crystal physics,” said author Yimin Luo. “And there’s something to be learned in making the structure not only resemble biological tissues but also function like biological tissues.”

The authors detailed several techniques to impart orientational order in cells, such as by controlling surface topography, by introducing stencils or adhesive patches to confine cells geometrically, and by growing cells on flat, but anisotropic, surfaces. In 3D, structure can be created through cell-laden matrices and by embedding electrospun fibers into biocompatible hydrogels.

The team also discussed techniques for representing anisotropic cellular structure in simulations, including agent-based models, continuum models, and data-driven simulations.

The authors hope that this suite of tools and methods can aid researchers in better understanding anisotropy in cellular structures.

“I want to see more understanding of how these structures arise and that they be increasingly integrated in tissue engineering and drug screening models,” said Luo.

Source: “Ordered materials meet living cells: Engineering alignment and programming force actuation,” by Yuxin Luo, Toshi Parmar, Mengyang Gu, M. Cristina Marchetti, and Yimin Luo, Biophysics Reviews (2026). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0287774 .

This paper is part of the Understanding and Harnessing Assembly Processes in Biological Materials and Biomimetics Collection, learn more here .