Methods Mol Biol
January 2025
Negative magnetophoresis is employed to levitate cells in a paramagnetic medium without the need for magnetic labeling, preserving their natural state and minimizing toxicity. The single-ring magnet configuration that provides an open space in the levitation chamber enhances culture accessibility and scalability, enabling the formation of millimeter-sized 3D structures through cellular self-assembly. This system provides a versatile and cost-effective approach for diverse applications, including tissue engineering and biofabrication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has posed significant challenges to existing healthcare systems around the world. The urgent need for the development of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for COVID-19 has boomed the demand for new technologies that can improve current healthcare approaches, moving towards more advanced, digitalized, personalized, and patient-oriented systems. Microfluidic-based technologies involve the miniaturization of large-scale devices and laboratory-based procedures, enabling complex chemical and biological operations that are conventionally performed at the macro-scale to be carried out on the microscale or less.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiamagnetic levitation is an emerging technology for remote manipulation of cells in cell and tissue level applications. Low-cost magnetic levitation configurations using permanent magnets are commonly composed of a culture chamber physically sandwiched between two block magnets that limit working volume and applicability. This work describes a single ring magnet-based magnetic levitation system to eliminate physical limitations for biofabrication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn clinical practice, a variety of diagnostic applications require the identification of target cells. Density has been used as a physical marker to distinguish cell populations since metabolic activities could alter the cell densities. Magnetic levitation offers great promise for separating cells at the single cell level within heterogeneous populations with respect to cell densities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTissue engineering research aims to repair the form and/or function of impaired tissues. Tissue engineering studies mostly rely on scaffold-based techniques. However, these techniques have certain challenges, such as the selection of proper scaffold material, including mechanical properties, sterilization, and fabrication processes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChallenging environment of space causes several pivotal alterations in living systems, especially due to microgravity. The possibility of simulating microgravity by ground-based systems provides research opportunities that may lead to the understanding of in vitro biological effects of microgravity by eliminating the challenges inherent to spaceflight experiments. Stem cells are one of the most prominent cell types, due to their self-renewal and differentiation capabilities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBreast cancer is one of the most common cancer types among women in which early tumor invasion leads to metastases and death. EpCAM (epithelial cellular adhesion molecule) and HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) are two main circulating tumor cell (CTC) subsets in HER2+ breast cancer patients. In this regard, the main aim of this study is to develop and characterize a three-dimensional (3D) breast cancer tumor model composed of CTC subsets to evaluate new therapeutic strategies and drugs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMagnetic levitation methodology enables density-based separation of microparticles/cells and sustains cell culture in different media. Levitation process can be accomplished via negative magnetophoresis (diamagnetophoresis), where the applied magnetic force compensates gravitational acceleration and the density of the diamagnetic object (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdipocyte hypertrophy and hyperplasia are important parameters in describing abnormalities in adipogenesis that are concomitant to diseases such as obesity, diabetes, anorexia nervosa and osteoporosis. Therefore, technical developments in the detection of adipocytes become an important driving factor in adipogenesis research. Current techniques such as optical microscopy and flow cytometry are available in detection and examination of adipocytes, driving cell- and molecular-based research of adipogenesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Bioeng Biotechnol
December 2018
Live cell manipulation is an important biotechnological tool for cellular and tissue level bioengineering applications due to its capacity for guiding cells for separation, isolation, concentration, and patterning. Magnetic force-based cell manipulation methods offer several advantages, such as low adverse effects on cell viability and low interference with the cellular environment. Furthermore, magnetic-based operations can be readily combined with microfluidic principles by precisely allowing control over the spatiotemporal distribution of physical and chemical factors for cell manipulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMagnetic levitation though negative magnetophoresis is a novel technology to simulate weightlessness and has recently found applications in material and biological sciences. Yet little is known about the ability of the magnetic levitation system to facilitate biofabrication of in situ three dimensional (3D) cellular structures. Here, we optimized a magnetic levitation though negative magnetophoresis protocol appropriate for long term levitated cell culture and developed an in situ 3D cellular assembly model with controlled cluster size and cellular pattern under simulated weightlessness.
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