Cell Study Platform Research
Also here we exploit our ability to create a wide variety of microscale / microfluidic platforms on one side to pursue fundamental studies, for example to unravel the role of intracellular redox state in the development of cancer, and on the other side to pursue specific tasks such as the sorting and collecting of stem cells from blood. In yet other projects, we utilize microfluidic structures to create gradients of soluble factors to study cell-cell signaling, for example in relation to wound healing, or to create immobilized gradients to study cell proliferation, differentiation, and migration. In most of these projects we leverage our expertise in the design, fabrication and testing of microchemical systems with the expertise of collaborators on specific biological systems diseases. These are the current areas of our research:
Cellular studies on microfabricated gradients of extracellular matrix proteins
Cellular studies on microfabricated gradients of extracellular matrix proteins
Collaboration: Prof. Deborah E. Leckband
Funding: University of Illinois Campus Research Initiative and by the NSF
Microfluidic devices are implemented to create gradients of proteins for the study of cellular processes. Cells are seeded on these gradients to determine how cells migrate, proliferate, and differentiate within the different local concentrations that the gradient presents. In particular, extra cellular matrix (ECM) proteins are patterned in a linear gradient fashion to determine the response of intestinal epithelial cells. It was demonstrated that intestinal epithelial cells (IEC-6 and Caco-2) undergo differentiation at higher concentrations of laminin and lower concentrations of collagen. Conversely, cells remain in a proliferative state at lower concentrations of laminin and higher concentrations of collagen.
Currently, these ECM gradients are used to determine what guiding factors, gradient steepness or local concentration, direct IEC-6 cell migration. Preliminary data suggest that gradient steepness has no observable effect on cell directedness. However, cell directedness is affected by local concentration. IEC-6 cell directedness is highest at the lowest concentrations studied while cell directedness is lowest at the highest concentrations.
 |  |
| Patterns of ECM proteins of crypt-villus epithelium mimicked using microfluidic platforms | IEC-6 cells on a gradient of Laminin |
- Cell Migration and Polarity on Microfabricated Gradients of Extracellular Matrix Proteins. R. Gunawan, J. Silvestre, H.R. Gaskins, L.B. Schook, P.J.A. Kenis, D.E. Leckband, Langmuir, 2006, 22, 4250-4258.