Refine
Year of publication
Institute
- IfB - Institut für Bioengineering (623) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- no (623) (remove)
Document Type
- Article (426)
- Conference Proceeding (113)
- Part of a Book (37)
- Doctoral Thesis (20)
- Report (10)
- Book (8)
- Other (3)
- Habilitation (2)
- Patent (2)
- Review (1)
Keywords
- solar sail (5)
- CellDrum (3)
- GOSSAMER-1 (3)
- MASCOT (3)
- Biocomposites (2)
- Iterative learning control (2)
- Limit analysis (2)
- Mars (2)
- Natural fibres (2)
- Polymer-matrix composites (2)
A new in vitro tool to investigate cardiac contractility under physiological mechanical conditions
(2019)
Advances in polymer science have significantly increased polymer applications in life sciences. We report the use of free-standing, ultra-thin polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes, called CellDrum, as cell culture substrates for an in vitro wound model. Dermal fibroblast monolayers from 28- and 88-year-old donors were cultured on CellDrums. By using stainless steel balls, circular cell-free areas were created in the cell layer (wounding). Sinusoidal strain of 1 Hz, 5% strain, was applied to membranes for 30 min in 4 sessions. The gap circumference and closure rate of un-stretched samples (controls) and stretched samples were monitored over 4 days to investigate the effects of donor age and mechanical strain on wound closure. A significant decrease in gap circumference and an increase in gap closure rate were observed in trained samples from younger donors and control samples from older donors. In contrast, a significant decrease in gap closure rate and an increase in wound circumference were observed in the trained samples from older donors. Through these results, we propose the model of a cell monolayer on stretchable CellDrums as a practical tool for wound healing research. The combination of biomechanical cell loading in conjunction with analyses such as gene/protein expression seems promising beyond the scope published here.