{"title":"Electrophysiological properties of neurons grown on soft polymer scaffolds reveal the potential to develop neuromimetic culture environments.","authors":"Michael G Evans, Arwa Al-Shakli, Divya M Chari","doi":"10.1093/intbio/zyz033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/intbio/zyz033","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Tissue engineering methodologies for various physiological systems are seeing a significant trend towards 3D cell culture in or on 'soft' polymeric hydrogel materials, widely considered to provide a more biomimetic environment for cell growth versus 'hard' materials such as glass or plastic. Progress has been slower with 3D neural cell culture with current studies overwhelmingly reliant on hard substrates. Accordingly, our knowledge of the alterations in electrochemical properties of neurons propagated in soft materials is relatively limited. In this study, primary cortical neurons and glial cells were seeded onto the surface of collagen hydrogels and grown in vitro for 7-8 days. At this time, neurons had formed a complex neurite web interspersed with astrocytes. Neuronal patch clamp recordings revealed voltage-gated Na+ and K+ currents in voltage clamp and action potentials in current clamp. When measured at voltages close to maximum activation, both currents were >1 nA in mean amplitude. When compared to primary cortical neurons cultured on glass coverslips, but otherwise under similar conditions (Evans et al., 2017), the Na+ current from hydrogel neurons was found to be significantly larger although there were no differences in the K+ current amplitude, membrane potential, input resistance or cell capacitance. We speculate that the larger size of the neuronal voltage-dependent Na+ current in the hydrogels is related to the better biomimetic properties of the soft material, being close to values reported for neurons recorded in brain slices. The results highlight the potential benefits offered by neuronal culture on soft and biomimetic polymeric materials for neural tissue engineering studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":80,"journal":{"name":"Integrative Biology","volume":"11 11","pages":"395-403"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2019-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/intbio/zyz033","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37530955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alireza Zabihihesari, Arthur J Hilliker, Pouya Rezai
{"title":"Fly-on-a-Chip: Microfluidics for Drosophila melanogaster Studies.","authors":"Alireza Zabihihesari, Arthur J Hilliker, Pouya Rezai","doi":"10.1093/intbio/zyz037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/intbio/zyz037","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The fruit fly or Drosophila melanogaster has been used as a promising model organism in genetics, developmental and behavioral studies as well as in the fields of neuroscience, pharmacology, and toxicology. Not only all the developmental stages of Drosophila, including embryonic, larval, and adulthood stages, have been used in experimental in vivo biology, but also the organs, tissues, and cells extracted from this model have found applications in in vitro assays. However, the manual manipulation, cellular investigation and behavioral phenotyping techniques utilized in conventional Drosophila-based in vivo and in vitro assays are mostly time-consuming, labor-intensive, and low in throughput. Moreover, stimulation of the organism with external biological, chemical, or physical signals requires precision in signal delivery, while quantification of neural and behavioral phenotypes necessitates optical and physical accessibility to Drosophila. Recently, microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip devices have emerged as powerful tools to overcome these challenges. This review paper demonstrates the role of microfluidic technology in Drosophila studies with a focus on both in vivo and in vitro investigations. The reviewed microfluidic devices are categorized based on their applications to various stages of Drosophila development. We have emphasized technologies that were utilized for tissue- and behavior-based investigations. Furthermore, the challenges and future directions in Drosophila-on-a-chip research, and its integration with other advanced technologies, will be discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":80,"journal":{"name":"Integrative Biology","volume":"11 12","pages":"425-443"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2019-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/intbio/zyz037","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37565354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Index of Selective Subjects and Terms","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/9781618111333-010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/9781618111333-010","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":80,"journal":{"name":"Integrative Biology","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2019-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75088830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A Reiser, D Woschée, N Mehrotra, R Krzysztoń, H H Strey, J O Rädler
{"title":"Correlation of mRNA delivery timing and protein expression in lipid-based transfection.","authors":"A Reiser, D Woschée, N Mehrotra, R Krzysztoń, H H Strey, J O Rädler","doi":"10.1093/intbio/zyz030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/intbio/zyz030","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Non-viral gene delivery is constrained by the dwell time that most synthetic nucleic acid nanocarriers spend inside endosomal compartments. In order to overcome this endosomal-release bottleneck, methods are required that measure nanocarrier uptake kinetics and transfection efficiency simultaneously. Here, we employ live-cell imaging on single-cell arrays (LISCA) to study the delivery-time distribution of lipid-based mRNA complexes under varied serum conditions. By fitting a translation-maturation model to hundreds of individual eGFP reporter fluorescence time courses, the protein expression onset times and the expression rates after transfection are determined. Using this approach, we find that delivery timing and protein expression rates are not intrinsically correlated at the single-cell level, even though population-averaged values of both parameters conjointly change as a function of increasing external serum protein fraction. Lipofectamine-mediated delivery showed decreased transfection efficiency and longer delivery times with increasing serum protein concentration. This is in contrast to ionizable lipid nanoparticle (i-LNP)-mediated transfer, which showed increased efficiency and faster uptake in the presence of serum. In conclusion, the interdependences of single-cell expression rates and onset timing provide additional clues on uptake and release mechanisms, which are useful for improving nucleic acid delivery.</p>","PeriodicalId":80,"journal":{"name":"Integrative Biology","volume":"11 9","pages":"362-371"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2019-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/intbio/zyz030","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37468561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Trinh Lam, Mark Maienschein-Cline, David T Eddington, Donald A Morrison
{"title":"Multiplex gene transfer by genetic transformation between isolated S. pneumoniae cells confined in microfluidic droplets.","authors":"Trinh Lam, Mark Maienschein-Cline, David T Eddington, Donald A Morrison","doi":"10.1093/intbio/zyz036","DOIUrl":"10.1093/intbio/zyz036","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Gene exchange via genetic transformation makes major contributions to antibiotic resistance of the human pathogen, Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus). The transfers begin when a pneumococcal cell, in a transient specialized physiological state called competence, attacks and lyses another cell, takes up fragments of the liberated DNA, and integrates divergent genes into its genome. Recently, it has been demonstrated that the pneumococcal cells can be enclosed in femtoliter-scale droplets for study of the transformation mechanism, offering the ability to characterize individual cell-cell interactions and overcome the limitations of current methods involving bulk mixed cultures. To determine the relevance and reliability of this new method for study of bacterial genetic transformation, we compared recombination events occurring in 44 recombinants recovered after competence-mediated gene exchange between pairs of cells confined in femtoliter-scale droplets vs. those occurring in exchanges in parallel bulk culture mixtures. The pattern of recombination events in both contexts exhibited the hallmarks of the macro-recombination exchanges previously observed within the more complex natural contexts of biofilms and long-term evolution in the human host.</p>","PeriodicalId":80,"journal":{"name":"Integrative Biology","volume":"11 12","pages":"415-424"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2019-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7011181/pdf/zyz036.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"37586533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Premashis Manna, S. Hung, Srijit Mukherjee, Pia Friis, D. M. Simpson, Maria N. Lo, A. Palmer, R. Jimenez
{"title":"Erratum: Directed evolution of excited state lifetime and brightness in FusionRed using a microfluidic sorter.","authors":"Premashis Manna, S. Hung, Srijit Mukherjee, Pia Friis, D. M. Simpson, Maria N. Lo, A. Palmer, R. Jimenez","doi":"10.1093/intbio/zyz032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/intbio/zyz032","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":80,"journal":{"name":"Integrative Biology","volume":"83 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2019-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83433890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrew J Fleszar, Alyssa Walker, Pamela K Kreeger, Jacob Notbohm
{"title":"Substrate curvature induces fallopian tube epithelial cell invasion via cell-cell tension in a model of ovarian cortical inclusion cysts.","authors":"Andrew J Fleszar, Alyssa Walker, Pamela K Kreeger, Jacob Notbohm","doi":"10.1093/intbio/zyz028","DOIUrl":"10.1093/intbio/zyz028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Throughout the body, epithelial tissues contain curved features (e.g. cysts, ducts and crypts) that influence cell behaviors. These structures have varied curvature, with flat structures having zero curvature and structures such as crypts having large curvature. In the ovary, cortical inclusion cysts (CICs) of varying curvatures are found, and fallopian tube epithelial (FTE) cells have been found trapped within these cysts. FTE are the precursor for ovarian cancer, and the CIC niche has been proposed to play a role in ovarian cancer progression. We hypothesized that variations in ovarian CIC curvature that occur during cyst resolution impact the ability of trapped FTE cells to invade into the surrounding stroma. Using a lumen model in collagen gels, we determined that increased curvature resulted in more invasions of mouse FTE cells. To isolate curvature as a system parameter, we developed a novel technique to pattern concave curvatures into collagen gels. When FTE cells were seeded to confluency on curved substrates, increases in curvature increased the number of invading FTE cells and the invasion distance. FTE invasion into collagen substrates with higher curvature depended on matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), but expression of collagen I degrading Mmps was not different on curved and flat regions. A finite-element model predicted that contractility and cell-cell connections were essential for increased invasion on substrates with higher curvature, while cell-substrate interactions had minimal effect. Experiments supported these predictions, with invasion decreased by blebbistatin, ethylene glycol-bis(β-aminoethyl ether)-N,N,N',N'-tetraacetic acid (EGTA) or N-cadherin-blocking antibody, but with no effect from a focal adhesion kinase inhibitor. Finally, experimental evidence supports that cell invasion on curved substrates occurs in two phases-a cell-cell-dependent initiation phase where individual cells break away from the monolayer and an MMP-dependent phase as cells migrate further into the collagen matrix.</p>","PeriodicalId":80,"journal":{"name":"Integrative Biology","volume":"11 8","pages":"342-352"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2019-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6887516/pdf/nihms-1059971.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49671769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}