Yanfen Li

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Fellow at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Historically the culture of mammalian cells in the laboratory has been performed on planar substrates with media cocktails that are optimized to maintain phenotype. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that much of biology discerned from 2D studies does not translate well to the 3D microenvironment. Over the last several decades, 2D and 3D mi...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

The development of 3D cellular architectures during development and pathological processes involves intricate migratory patterns that are modulated by genetics and the surrounding microenvironment. The substrate composition of cell cultures has been demonstrated to influence growth, proliferation, and migration in 2D. Here we study the growth and d...

The development of 3D cellular architectures during development and pathological processes involves intricate migratory patterns that are modulated by genetics and the surrounding microenvironment. The substrate composition of cell cultures has been demonstrated to influence growth, proliferation, and migration in 2D. Here we study the growth and d...

Cancer progression involves complex signals within the tumor microenvironment that orchestrate proliferation and invasive processes. The mechanical properties of the extracellular matrix (ECM) within this microenvironment has been demonstrated to influence growth and the migratory phenotype that precedes invasion. Here we present the integration of...

Endothelial cells adherent to nanostructured porous silicon (PSi)‐based photonic crystals. Here the authors demonstrate a multilayered structure of cell‐laden hydrogels seperated by photonic crystal films that are designed to mimic membranes in biology. Engineering the surface chemistry and optical properties of the films enables multiple functiona...

The native architecture of tissue segregates populations of cells through nanostructured membranes of biopolymers (e.g., basement membranes) which serve the dual purpose of providing scaffolding for cells and filtration through size‐exclusion. A multilayered approach to fabricate tissue scaffolds where populations of encapsulated cells are separate...

Characterizing the effects of force fields generated by cells on proliferation, migration, and differentiation processes is challenging due to limited availability of non‐destructive imaging modalities. Here, we integrate a new real‐time traction stress imaging modality, Hilbert phase dynamometry (HPD), with spatial light interference microscopy (S...

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are progenitor cells that contribute to treatment-resistant phenotypes during relapse. CSCs exist in specific tissue microenvironments that cell cultures and more complex models cannot mimic. Therefore, the development of new approaches that can detect CSCs and report on specific properties (e.g., stem cell plasticity) in t...

Understanding cell mechanotransduction is important for discerning matrix structure-cell function relationships underlying health and disease. Despite the crucial role of mechanochemical signaling in phenomena such as cell migration, proliferation, and differentiation, measuring the cell-generated forces at the interface with the extracellular matr...

Introduction The propagation of mechanochemical signals from the extracellular matrix to the cell nucleus has emerged as a central feature in regulating cellular differentiation and de-differentiation. This process of outside-in signaling and the associated mechanotransduction pathways have been well described in numerous developmental and patholog...

According to data from the ASEE, women were awarded 23.1% of doctoral degrees and held 15.7% of tenured/tenure-track faculty faculty positions in 2015 versus 21.3% and 12.7% in 2009, respectively [1, 2]. While promising, the “leaky pipeline” remains a persistent problem in the recruitment of underrepresented people into tenure track positions. To h...

According to data from ASEE, women were awarded 23.1% of engineering doctoral degrees and held 15.7% of tenured/tenure-track faculty positions in 2015 versus 21.3% and 12.7% in 2009, respectively [1, 2]. This slight increase over six years is encouraging but also serves to highlight the continuing paucity of female engineering faculty. The causes a...

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy is a promising approach for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, demonstrating pronounced trophic, immunomodulatory, and pro-angiogenic activity. However, clinical efficacy has suffered from broad variability, presumably due to cell death upon implantation, and the heterogeneous population of autologous cells...

Endometriosis, defined as growth of the endometrial cells outside the uterus, is an inflammatory disorder that is associated with chronic pelvic pain and infertility in women of childbearing age. Although the estrogen-dependence of endometriosis is well known, the role of progesterone in development of this disease remains poorly understood. In thi...

Peritoneal macrophages are activated in this mouse model of endometriosis. Endometriosis was induced in immunocompetent host females and maintained with E2. Peritoneal cells were harvested at the indicated time points and subjected to double Immunofluorescent labeling for CD206 or CCR7 with F4/80, respectively. Representative images at each time po...

Rapid induction of pro-inflammatory cytokines in ectopic lesions. Endometriosis was induced in immunocompetent female mice and maintained with E2. The ectopic lesions were harvested on days 0, 4, 8, and 16 after induction and subjected to qPCR analysis to assess the relative level of gene expression corresponding to Ccl2, Ccl5, Il1b, Il6, Tnfα, and...

Progressive declines in expression of ERα/PR-mediated signaling components in the developing ectopic lesions. Endometriosis was induced in immunocompetent female mice and maintained with E2. The ectopic lesions were harvested on Days 0, 4, 8, and 16 after induction (N = 6) and subjected to qPCR analysis to assess the relative level of gene expressi...

P4 exhibits minimal effects on peritoneal macrophages. Ectopic lesions were induced in E2-, or E2 plus P4-treated immunocompetent host females. The total number of exuded peritoneal cells were counted (A) and subjected to double immunofluorescent labeling for CD206 or CCR7 with F4/80 (B). The average percentages of cell numbers for CCR7+/F4/80+ or...

Antibodies and Primers used in this study. (PDF)

We present a strategy to spatially define regions of gold and nanostructured silicon photonics, each with materials-specific surface chemistry, for azide-alkyne cycloaddition of different bioactive peptides. Neural stem cells are spatially directed to undergo neurogenesis and astrogenesis as a function of both surface properties and peptide identit...

Traction force microscopy is the most widely used technique for studying the forces exerted by cells on deformable substrates. However, the method is computationally intense and cells have to be detached from the substrate prior to measuring the displacement map. We have developed a new method, referred to as Hilbert phase dynamometry (HPD), which...

The brain's vasculature is likely to be subjected to the same age-related physiological and anatomical changes affecting the rest of the cardiovascular system. Since aerobic fitness is known to alleviate both cognitive and volumetric losses in the brain, it is important to investigate some of the possible mechanisms underlying these beneficial chan...

Basigin (BSG) is a multifunctional glycoprotein that plays an important role in male reproduction since male knockout (KO) mice are sterile. The Bsg KO testis lacks elongated spermatids and mature spermatozoa, a phenotype similar to that of alpha-mannosidase IIx (MX) KO mice. MX regulates formation of N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) terminated N-glyca...