Introduction Selective leukocyte interactions with endothelial barriers are a characteristic component of the inflammatory response process. These spatio-temporal interactions can mechanically remodel local tissue, as well as damage healthy tissue with robust inflammation stemming from an over-reactive immune response. This…
Category: μSiM
All things cell culture on the μSiM
Maintaining Polarized Inflammation and ICAM-1 mAb Blocking – FINAL Polarized TNF-alpha Revision Experiments
Introduction Read the manuscript here: Integrative Biology Publication Please refer to the linked manuscript for a detailed introduction. In short, we have been interested in characterizing the role of endothelial cell (EC) apicobasal polarity in inflammation. While usually reserved for…
pedELISA sensing on diffusion limited cytokines in uSIM
IntroductionThe ability to continuously sample and assay for the levels of soluble factors without disrupting the microenvironment is important to acquire sequential secretion profiles in BBB experiments on an uSIM module. Combining small volume sampling, buffer replenishment and sensitive pedELISA…
Posted in memBrains
Creating Unwanted Vacuoles in Endothelial Cells With Flow – Mossu et al – unpublished
Vacuoles with pulling flow vs pushing flow This video shows an example of the first trials with the uSim flow cell (Tejas’ early versions) when creating laminar flow over a monolayer of BLECs – see Mossu et al, JCBFM 2018…
10 kDa Small Molecule Permeability Optimization
Introduction A healthy blood-brain barrier is not permissive to most small molecules, but during inflammation, tight junctions weaken and the barrier becomes more permissive. We have developed an in situ permeability assay that tracks diffusion across a cell monolayer and…
Design and fabrication of the microfluidic flow module
Introduction Sepsis is a serious condition where unregulated systemic inflammation can cause organ failure and death. Recent evidence has also shown that sepsis can cause cognitive impairment in surviving patients. However, the mechanisms that cause sepsis-related damage to the brain…
Posted in memBrains
Extended Endothelial cell Culture Method-differentiated Brain Microvascular Endothelial Cell-like cell (EECM-BMEC-like cell) growth on Dual-Scale Membranes
Introduction Human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived blood-brain barrier (BBB) models have proven to be useful to study disease pathomechanisms and drug delivery into the central nervous system. Currently available hiPSC-derived BBB models are well characterized with respect to diffusion…
Posted in memBrains
Neural Crest Stem Cell Differentiation into Brain Pericyte-like Cells
Introduction Breakdown of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is one of the earliest signs of sepsis and is linked with long-term cognitive impairment. As animal models poorly recapitulate human sepsis, alternative approaches are direly needed to understand sepsis-associated brain injury and…
Posted in memBrains
hiPSC Differentiation into Neural Crest Stem Cells
Introduction Breakdown of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is one of the earliest signs of sepsis and is linked with long-term cognitive impairment. As animal models poorly recapitulate human sepsis, alternative approaches are direly needed to understand sepsis-associated brain injury and…
Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cell Shear on Manufactured Hybrid (Dual-Scale) Membranes
Introduction In our labs previously work, difficulties in growing endothelial cells (ECs) under shear flow lead to the exploration of novel membrane technologies that permit firm EC attachment, without compromising membrane permeability or leukocyte transmigration studies. We ultimately landed on…
