Analysis of pairwise cell interactions using an integrated dielectrophoretic-microfluidic system.

ABSTRACT: Blood vessel formation, during either normal vascular reconstruction or pathogenic tumour formation, relies upon highly organized cell-cell interactions. Isolating the function of any particular component of this cell-cell communication is often difficult, given the vast complexity of communication networks in multicellular systems. One way to address this problem is to analyse cell-cell communication on the most elementary scale--cell pairs. Here, we describe an integrated dielectrophoretic (DEP)-microfluidic device allowing for such analysis. Single cancer and endothelial cells (ECs) and cell pairs were patterned using DEP force and cultured within a minimally stressful microfluidic channel network. Controlling both the initial cell positions and extracellular environment, we investigate

SUBMITTER: Yin Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2615303 | biostudies-literature | 2008

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature