Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 6 Some of the various types of experiments conducted in microfluidic systems:
a Heterotypic cell culture investigating the interactions between GFP-expressing rat mammary
adenocarcinoma cells (MTLn3) and GFP-expressing human glioblastoma cell line (U87MG),
human microvascular endothelial cells (HMVEC) and a smooth muscle precursor cell line (10
T1/2) [ 90 ]—Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry. b Endothelial cells
seeded in one channel and hepatocyles seeded in the other. Hepatocytes form bile cannaliculi and
ECs sprout into the gel [ 102 ]—Reprinted with permission from FASEB. c Tumor cells (MDA)
and macrophage (RAW) co-seeded in hydrogel and interacting through intercellular signaling
[ 100 ]—Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry. d Investigating SMC
(Human aortic vascular SMC CRL-1999) migration in response to endothelium-derived factors
[ 103 ]—Reprinted with permission from The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology
sometimes contradictory behavior. When endothelial cells are allowed to interact
with a particular breast cancer cell line [ 90 ], the endothelial cells were observed to
actively sprout into the collagen type I gel, while the rate of tumor cell invasion
was relatively subdued. In contrast, when interacting with a glioblastoma cell line
(U87MG), the tumor cells became highly activated, migrating at a high speed
toward the endothelium, while the endothelial cells remained relatively quiescent
[ 89 ]. Clearly, multiple signals are being exchanged between tumor and endothelial
cells, and one cannot readily generalize from one cell line to another as their
behavior can be markedly different.
In another set of experiments using the same microfluidic device [ 103 ], the
interactions between an endothelial monolayer and the 10 T1/2 cell line were
considered (Fig. 6 d). Since the 10 T1/2 cells are known to be smooth muscle
precursor cells, the hypothesis was that when placed in close proximity, they
would both differentiate into mature SMCs and also migrate to the endothelial
monolayer, stabilizing it and forming an adjacent layer of cells. Results were
Search WWH ::




Custom Search