Cancer Tissue Engineering: A Novel 3D Polystyrene Scaffold for In Vitro Isolation and Amplification of Lymphoma Cancer Cells from Heterogeneous Cell Mixtures.

Isolation and amplification of primary lymphoma cells in vitro setting is technically and biologically challenging task. To optimize culture environment and mimic in vivo conditions, lymphoma cell lines were used as a test case and were grown in 3-dimension (3D) using a novel 3D tissue culture polystyrene scaffold with neonatal stromal cells to represent a lymphoma microenvironment. In this model, the cell proliferation was enhanced more than 200-fold or 20,000% neoplastic surplus in 7 days when less than 1% lymphoma cells were cocultured with 100-fold excess of neonatal stroma cells, representing 3.

Alpha5beta1 integrin-fibronectin interactions specify liquid to solid phase transition of 3D cellular aggregates.

Background: Tissue organization during embryonic development and wound healing depends on the ability of cells on the one hand to exchange adhesive bonds during active rearrangement and on the other to become fixed in place as tissue homeostasis is reached. Cells achieve these contradictory tasks by regulating either cell-cell adhesive bonds, mediated by cadherins, or cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) connections, regulated by integrins. Integrin alpha5beta1 and soluble fibronectin (sFN) are key players in cell-ECM force generation and in ECM polymerization.

Cellular morphogenesis in silico.

We describe a model that simulates spherical cells of different types that can migrate and interact either attractively or repulsively. We find that both expected morphologies and previously unreported patterns spontaneously self-assemble. Among the newly discovered patterns are a segmented state of alternating discs, and a "shish-kebab" state, in which one cell type forms a ring around a second type.

In silico zebrafish pattern formation.

Mutations that affect pattern formation in the zebrafish have been widely studied over the past few decades, leading to speculations as to the mechanism by which stripes, spots and other skin patterns are formed. Recent in silico developments in modeling of cellular dynamics now permit explicit analysis of how cells migrate and interact, and we describe here an in silico simulation that appears to reproduce many of the surface patterns previously reported in zebrafish. We find that many observed zebrafish patterns are necessarily associated with expression of repulsive as well as attractive cellular ligands, and we make predictions for the detailed effects of changes in expression of these ligands.