title: A rapid co-culture stamping device for studying intercellular communication.
abstract: Regulation of tissue development and repair depends on communication between neighbouring cells. Recent advances in cell micro-contact printing and microfluidics have facilitated the in-vitro study of homotypic and heterotypic cell-cell interaction. Nonetheless, these techniques are still complicated to perform and as a result, are seldom used by biologists. We report here development of a temporarily sealed microfluidic stamping device which utilizes a novel valve design for patterning two adherent cell lines with well-defined interlacing configurations to study cell-cell interactions. We demonstrate post-stamping cell viability of >95%, the stamping of multiple adherent cell types, and the ability to control the seeded cell density. We also show viability, proliferation and migration of cultured cells, enabling analysis of co-culture boundary conditions on cell fate. We also developed an in-vitro model of endothelial and cardiac stem cell interactions, which are thought to regulate coronary repair after myocardial injury. The stamp is fabricated using microfabrication techniques, is operated with a lab pipettor and uses very low reagent volumes of 20 μl with cell injection efficiency of >70%. This easy-to-use device provides a general strategy for micro-patterning of multiple cell types and will be important for studying cell-cell interactions in a multitude of applications.
authors.affiliation: School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Amin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hassanzadeh-Barforoushi
authors.affiliation: School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shemesh
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Nona
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Farbehi
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering, Faculty of Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Mohsen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Asadnia
authors.affiliation: School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Guan Heng
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Yeoh
authors.affiliation: Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Division, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Sydney, NSW, 2010; St. Vincent's Clinical School and School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Richard P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Harvey
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
authors.forename: Robert E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Nordon
authors.affiliation: School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.|Australian Centre for Nanomedicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia; Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia.|School of Medical Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Perth, WA 6027, Australia.
authors.forename: Majid Ebrahimi
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Warkiani
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D002450:Cell Communication; D002460:Cell Line; D002465:Cell Movement; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D002470:Cell Survival; D018920:Coculture Techniques / Q000379:methods; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D056656:Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; D051379:Mice; D044085:Microfluidics; D055616:Microtechnology; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000502:physiology*; D014945:Wound Healing