CYTOO’s 2D+ Cell Culture platform has helped researchers recreate in vivo conditions to study tumor cell motility.
The CYTOO 2D+ Cell Culture Platform is based on the use of adhesive micropatterns to guide cell architecture and behavior in culture.
This is in contrast to current 2D cell culture where cells spread and move in an uncontrolled manner.
By defining the 2D topology of cell adhesion, 2D+ Technology enables the fine control of the spreading and 3D shape of cultured cells in single- or multi-cellular configurations resulting in control of cell contractility, cell polarity, organelle positioning, or cell division axis.
Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY, with collaborators Huiping Liu from University of Chicago and Michael Clarke at Stamford School of Medicine, used CYTOO chips TM Motility to reconstitute an in vitro model of fibrillar tumor extracellular matrix (ECM).
The micropatterned 1D adhesive tracks were used to mimic the linear ECM fibers of the tumor microenvironment.
On micropatterned lines, the researchers could also reproduce the assembly of alternating tumor cells and macrophages identified as streams in vivo.
They demonstrates the ability of macrophages to enhance protrusion velocity and average velocity of tumor cells and showed that this effect was dependent on an intact paracrine loop without any additional need of co-factors.
The authors concluded that their 1D micropatterned substrate model more closely approximates the fibrillar nature of the in vivo tumor microenvironment and offers a simple and more appropriate substrate for detailed analyses of cell protrusion, cell-cell pairing and migration than conventional 2D substrates.
According to CYTOO, the data validates the use of micropatterned 1D adhesive substrates to study the fibrillar ECM found within the tumor microenvironment.
