Development of microfluidic devices with 3D collagen gels for traction force microscopy

Autor: López Guimet, Júlia, García Aznar, José Manuel, Mendoza Cantos, Gracia M.
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
Zdroj: Zaguán. Repositorio Digital de la Universidad de Zaragoza
instname
Popis: In the past few decades, it has been widely demonstrated that cells constantly exert traction forces on the cells and matrix surrounding them. This behavior is fundamental in physiological and pathological processes such as embryogenesis and metastasis, therefore studying how cells interact with their environment is vitally important to understand these processes. To contribute to this research field, the present master project aims to adapt a given microfluidic device to the traction force microscopy technique, which is currently the most reliable approach for measuring cell forces. It is of great interest to quantify the forces exerted by cells seeded inside this microfluidic device because this specific device allows the deposition of collagen in a 3D arrangement, which resembles better the cell’s physiological environment than traditional 2D cell cultures. Device adaptation consisted in introduction of fluorescent microbeads into the collagen matrix, and subsequent confocal microscopy imaging of the cultured cells. Both stages required optimization of diverse features, for example: bead size and concentration, cell viability and labeling, fluorescence staining complications, etc. After numerous experiments and information search, the aforementioned features were improved, and ultimately, the microfluidic device was successfully adapted to traction force microscopy. Thus, the final assays produced useful data for performing the cell force calculation.
Databáze: OpenAIRE