3D printed inserts for reproducible high throughput screening of cell migration

Abhayraj S. Joshi, Mukil Madhusudanan, Ivan Mijakovic*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

Cell migration is a fundamental and complex phenomenon that occurs in normal physiology and in diseases like cancer. Hence, understanding cell migration is very important in the fields of developmental biology and biomedical sciences. Cell migration occurs in 3 dimensions (3D) and involves an interplay of migrating cell(s), neighboring cells, extracellular matrix, and signaling molecules. To understand this phenomenon, most of the currently available techniques still rely on 2-dimensional (2D) cell migration assay, also known as the scratch assay or the wound healing assay. These methods suffer from limited reproducibility in creating a cell-free region (a scratch or a wound). Mechanical/heat related stress to cells is another issue which hampers the applicability of these methods. To tackle these problems, we developed an alternative method based on 3D printed biocompatible cell inserts, for quantifying cell migration in 24-well plates. The inserts were successfully validated via a high throughput assay for following migration of lung cancer cell line (A549 cell line) in the presence of standard cell migration promoters and inhibitors. We also developed an accompanying image analysis pipeline which demonstrated that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art methodologies for assessing the cell migration in terms of reproducibility and simplicity.
Original languageEnglish
Article number1256250
JournalFrontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology
Volume11
Number of pages12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Keywords

  • In vitro studies
  • Cell migration
  • Cell migration assay
  • Scratch assay
  • Wound healing assay
  • 3D printing
  • Biocompatible cell inserts
  • Image analysis

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