Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling

Poster Abstracts

50-POS

Board 25

Cell Stretching Dish Qingsen Li , Stefano Marchesi, Gururaj Rao, Giorgio Scita, Marco Foiani. IFOM, Milan, Milano, Italy.

Cells in the body constantly experience mechanical stimuli in various organ movement, development and functions. These mechanical stimuli are often essential to proper cell function, such as migration, proliferation, differentiation[1-4]. Cells sense such mechanical stimuli through a process called mechanotransduction [1, 5, 6]. Abnormal mechanotransduction leads to several patho-genesis, such as cancer, asthma, heart disease[1, 7, 8]. In Mechanobiology studies, the advance of in vitro technologies for the application of physiologically mimicking mechanical force to cultured cells and tissue are vital due to the complex in vivo biological system. The growing interest in Mechanobiology and technology gap have motivated the development of cell stretching device in various research labs and companies [10]. However, most cell stretching systems are bulky and limited in functions. In particular, there is no cell culture chamber/dish capable of multifunctional cell stretching. A novel cell stretching device in the size of a cell culture petri dish has been invented, which is called cell stretching dish. It is capable of uniaxial as well as biaxial stretching. The cell stretching dish is characterized by high level of stretching, which can reach up to 100% (and more). It is portable and easy to be used for both cell culture and microscope imaging experiment. The device has been tested to be compatible with the high resolution objectives, for live cell as well as fixed cell immunofluorescence imaging, and can be scaled up and down to fit any inverted microscope. The device can be 3D printed or made from plastic, thus further reducing the cost of production, bringing down the complicated cell stretching system to the consumable level. The unique design, high level stretch, cheap cost will open variety of possibilities not only to researchers in mechanobiology but also broad field of biologist.

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