Adhesive-tape soft lithography for patterning mammalian cells: Application to wound-healing assays

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-1-2012

Abstract

This paper introduces a benchtop method for patterning mammalian cells-i.e., for culturing cells at specific locations- on planar substrates. Compared with standard cell culture techniques, which do not allow the control of what areas of a monolayer are populated by one type of cell or another, techniques of cell patterning open new routes to cell biology. Researchers interested in cell patterning, however, are oftentimes hindered by limited access to photolithographic capabilities. This paper shows how cells can be patterned easily with sub-millimeter precision using a non-photolithographic technique that is based on the use of office adhesive tape and poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). This method is fast (~4 h to go from a layout to have the cells patterned in the shape of such layout) and only requires materials and tools readily available in a conventional biomedical laboratory. A wound-healing assay is presented here that illustrates the potential of the technique (which we call tape-based soft lithography) for patterning mammalian cells and studying biologically significant questions such as collective cellular migration.

Identifier

84869233761 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Biotechniques

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.2144/000113928

e-ISSN

19409818

ISSN

07366205

PubMed ID

23066667

First Page

315

Last Page

318

Issue

5

Volume

53

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