Integrating Shear Flow and Trypsin Treatment to Assess Cell Adhesion Strength

Area of Science:

• Cell biology
• Biophysics
• Tissue engineering

Background:

• Cell adhesion is crucial for tissue organization and engineering.
• Existing shear flow assays are limited for strongly adherent cells, requiring specialized equipment or yielding low shear stress.
• Assessing cell adhesion strength is vital for developing functional cell-based therapies.

Approach:

• A novel shear flow assay using off-the-shelf parallel plate chambers and simultaneous trypsin treatment was developed.
• The assay effectively assesses adhesion strength of strongly adherent cells within a shear stress range of 0.07 to 7 Pa.
• High-resolution imaging enabled morphological analysis of hundreds of cells across a square centimeter area.

Key Points:

• The assay successfully dislodged strongly adherent cells using moderate shear stress and trypsin.
• Cell area of dislodged cells did not consistently increase with higher shear stress, possibly due to cell circularity influencing trypsin resistance.
• The assay demonstrated adaptability for both weakly and strongly adherent cell types.

Conclusions:

• The proposed shear flow assay provides a versatile and accessible method for measuring cell adhesion strength.
• This technique has potential applications in mechanobiology for substrate stiffness-dependent adhesion studies.
• The assay facilitates advancements in designing cell-laden constructs for tissue engineering applications.