Investigation of cellular confinement in 3D microscale fibrous substrates: Fabrication and metrology

Filippos Tourlomousis, William Boettcher, Houzhu Ding, Robert C. Chang

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Engineered microenvironments along with robust quantitative models of cell shape metrology that can decouple the effect of various well-defined cues on a stem cell's phenotypic response would serve as an illuminating tool for testing mechanistic hypotheses on how stem cell fate is fundamentally regulated. As an experimental testbed to probe the effect of geometrical confinement on cell morphology, poly(ϵ-caprolactone) (PCL) layered fibrous meshes are fabricated with an in-house melt electrospinning writing system. Gradual confinement states of fibroblasts are demonstrated by seeding primary fibroblasts on defined substrates, including a classical two-dimensional (2D) petri dish and porous 3D fibrous substrates with microarchitectures tunable within a tight cellular dimensional scale window (1-50 μm). To characterize fibroblast confinement, a quantitative 3D confocal fluorescence imaging workflow for 3D cell shape representation is presented. The methodology advanced allows the extraction of cellular and subcellular morphometric features including the number, location, and 3D distance distribution metrics of the shapebearing focal adhesion proteins.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationBio and Sustainable Manufacturing
ISBN (Electronic)9780791850756
DOIs
StatePublished - 2017
EventASME 2017 12th International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, MSEC 2017 collocated with the JSME/ASME 2017 6th International Conference on Materials and Processing - Los Angeles, United States
Duration: 4 Jun 20178 Jun 2017

Publication series

NameASME 2017 12th International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, MSEC 2017 collocated with the JSME/ASME 2017 6th International Conference on Materials and Processing
Volume4

Conference

ConferenceASME 2017 12th International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference, MSEC 2017 collocated with the JSME/ASME 2017 6th International Conference on Materials and Processing
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityLos Angeles
Period4/06/178/06/17

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