Supporting regenerative medicine:
a high-performance, animal-free cell culture coating
Cell Culture Coating Material for Regenerative Medicine
FP121, a recombinant protein designed around marine adhesive proteins, is a next-generation culture coating that strongly supports the adhesion and proliferation of delicate cells such as iPS cells. Because it uses no animal-derived raw materials, it offers a substrate free of lot-to-lot variability and infection-risk concerns, with regenerative-medicine grade in view.
The problem, and how we solve it
⚠ Limits of current technology
- ✕ Lot-to-lot variability in Matrigel™ — derived from mouse sarcoma, it requires management of animal-derived risk (viruses, prions). Concerns for clinical application have been raised.
- ✕ The high cost of recombinant laminin and similar products — increasingly used as alternatives, but expensive to manufacture, and for some cell types adhesion and proliferation performance is insufficient.
- ✕ Suspension cells are hard to attach — polystyrene surfaces are strongly hydrophobic, making the fixation and analysis of suspension cells and primary cultures difficult.
✓ What Novelglue (FP121) changes
- ✓ Large-scale synthesis in E. coli — a recombinant protein with an FP1–FP2–FP1 structure, produced through a scalable process for reliable supply.
- ✓ Firm adhesion to a wide range of substrates — coats glass, plastics, PTFE and more, firmly and even when wet, acting as a scaffold for cell adhesion.
- ✓ EGF-like activity promotes proliferation — the FP2 domain shows EGF-like activity and promotes cell proliferation even in the absence of serum (Kawakami et al., 2025).
- ✓ Fully xeno-free — non-animal-derived with a defined composition, suited to chemically defined culture systems.
Technical data
The figures below are from basic research (Kawakami et al., 2025).
~83%
K562 suspension cell adhesion
On a par with CellTak (about 89%)
4.6×
HeLa cell proliferation
Versus negative control, serum-free, 24 h
63 kPa
Tensile adhesion when wet
Adhesive strength in physiological saline
6 months+
Room-temperature stability
Coating performance retained when stored away from light
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| K562 suspension cell adhesion | About 83% |
| HeLa cell proliferation | About 4.6× the negative control |
| Adhesion (wet) | 63 kPa |
| Adhesion (dry surface) | 0.2 MPa |
| Long-term storage | Over 6 months at room temperature, away from light |
Note: the figures above are from basic research. See Kawakami et al. (2025) for detail.
Where it can be used
Coating for maintenance culture of iPS and stem cells
As a xeno-free substrate replacing Matrigel. It removes lot-to-lot variability and delivers a highly reproducible culture environment.
Adhesion substrate for cultured neural cells
Adhesion of PC12 and primary neurons. Confirmed not to interfere with differentiation-inducing stimuli such as NGF.
Analysis platform for suspension cells
Fixes suspension cells such as K562 on a glass slide, enabling fluorescence observation, flow cytometry and other analyses.
Coating agent for 3D-printed scaffolds
For attaching cells to the surface of artificial materials such as polystyrene and PET, extending to tissue-engineering scaffolds.
The evidence behind it
Design and properties of the FP121 series
FP121 is a recombinant protein with an FP1–FP2–FP1 structure, designed around the amino-acid sequence of mussel foot protein (MFP).
The FP1 domain, which contains DOPA (3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine), provides strong wet adhesion to the substrate, while the FP2 domain, with its EGF-like (epidermal growth factor) structure, shows cell adhesion and proliferation-promoting activity.
The detailed design and characterisation of this technology are reported in the academic literature as Kawakami et al. (2025).
References
- Kawakami Y., et al. Development of the FP121 series: Hybrid proteins mimicking marine adhesive proteins with cell adhesion and proliferation activity. Materials & Design, 2025. ScienceDirect →
- Aisenbrey E.A., Murphy W.L. Synthetic alternatives to Matrigel. Nature Reviews Materials, 2020, 5, 539–551. DOI →
- Ferreira L.A., et al. The future is fully defined: recombinant fragment E8 of laminin-511 is a viable xenofree alternative to Matrigel for hiPSC culture. bioRxiv, 2024. DOI →
- Choi J., et al. Sticky organisms create underwater biological adhesives driven by interactions between EGF- and GlcNAc-containing polysaccharides. Nature Communications, 2025, 16(1). DOI →
- Lee H., Dellatore S.M., Miller W.M., Messersmith P.B. Mussel-Inspired Surface Chemistry for Multifunctional Coatings. Science, 2007, 318(5849), 426–430. DOI →
- Waite J.H. Mussel adhesion — essential footwork. Journal of Experimental Biology, 2017, 220(4), 517–530. DOI →
- Maier G.P., Rapp M.V., Waite J.H., Israelachvili J.N., Butler A. Adaptive synergy between catechol and lysine promotes wet adhesion by surface salt displacement. Science, 2015, 349(6248), 628–632. DOI →
Development status
This is currently at the research and development stage. Timing for clinical application or commercialisation is undecided.
FP121 protein design and E. coli expression system
Design, expression and purification processes for the recombinant protein established. Adhesion properties and proliferation-promoting activity confirmed.
Performance evaluation across multiple cell types
Accumulating adhesion and proliferation data for HeLa, K562, neural cells and others; searching for optimal coating conditions.
Basic safety testing
Cytotoxicity and genotoxicity testing under way, following the ISO10993 series.
Manufacturing process for regenerative-medicine grade product
Putting GMP-equivalent quality management in place, to be advanced together with joint research partners.
Note: this has not reached the stage of PMDA approval, clinical trials or clinical studies. Everything on this page is at the research and development stage.
Joint research and technical documentation
Please get in touch about detailed technical documentation for FP121 (following an NDA), samples or joint research.