Fig. 2: In situ peptide self-assembly into nanofibers and induces cell spheroids formation.
From: Mechanical forces from intercellular peptide self-assembly drive spheroid formation
a The molecular structure of the peptide CSP. b Cryo-EM images of nanostructures formed by CSP (50 μM) with or without the treatment of ALP (1 U/mL). c The illustration and microscopic images of U87MG cell spheroids formation induced by peptide CSP (50 μM) at 24 and 96 h. Created in BioRender. Li, Y. (2025) https://BioRender.com/dmp2u6m. d The projected area of U87MG cell spheroids induced by peptide CSP at different concentrations (n  =  10). Data are presented as plots: center lines =   mean, error bar = SD, and individual data points are shown as circles. e Live/dead fluorescence staining images of cell spheroids induced by CSP for 96 h. f SEM images of U87MG cell spheroid, with filopodia marked in yellow, peptide nanofibers in cyan, and microvilli in purple, respectively. g Bio-EM images of U87MG cells treated with CSP for 6 and 24 h (The cell membrane is depicted by blue lines), respectively. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
