Deformable 96-well cell culture plate compatible with high-throughput screening platforms

Area of Science:

• Cell Biology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Mechanobiology

Background:

• Adherent cells, including endothelial cells, respond to mechanical stretch to adapt to their environment.
• Understanding cellular mechanosensing and adaptation pathways is crucial but limited by a lack of comprehensive screening tools.
• Current high-throughput analyses typically use standard multi-well plates, which are not designed for mechanical stretching.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and validate a novel 96-well cell culture plate made of elastic silicone for mechanical stretching.
• To enable comprehensive, high-throughput screening of cellular responses to mechanical stretch.
• To facilitate the elucidation of signaling pathways involved in cellular mechanosensing and adaptation.

Main Methods:

• Development of a 96-well cell culture plate constructed from elastic silicone.
• Integration of a motorized device for applying mechanical stretch to the plate.
• Computational analysis and experimental evaluation using elastic image registration to assess stretch uniformity.
• Application of cyclic stretch to vascular smooth muscle cells to observe cellular responses.

Main Results:

• The system allows for mechanical stretching of cells in a 96-well format.
• Computational analysis predicted uniform stretch, while experimental evaluation showed some variation but achieved a 10% stretch level.
• Vascular smooth muscle cells exhibited morphological repolarization in response to cyclic stretch.
• The deformable plate is compatible with other high-throughput screening technologies.

Conclusions:

• A novel, stretchable 96-well plate system has been successfully developed and validated.
• This system provides a platform for high-throughput analysis of cellular responses to mechanical stretch.
• The technology is expected to advance the comprehensive study of stretch-related signaling pathways in cell biology.