3D platform to study EndMT under shear stress

Endothelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EndMT) is a well-understood in development but not in the adult.  This may be important in development of disease or progression through invasion, as in metastasis.  A laboratory at the University of Binghamton, NY has developed a 3D fluidic device that permits the application of shear stress to endothelial cells to determine if this is a driver of EndMT.

To test this required measurement of major cell compartments, cell boundaries and their cell interactions - for example, tight junctions.  DRAQ5 was used to counterstain the cell nucleus at the end of the shear stress period, and this necessitated permeating the collagen matrix utilised and which was tuned to mimic the stiffness of blood vessels.  Using DRAQ5 and fluorescently-tagged phalloidin it was possible to measure the shape index (SI) and orientation angle (OA) under different shear stress conditions, amongst the measurements undertaken to determine the different states of cells under shear stress. 

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Reference:

Mina, S. G., Wang, W., Cao, Q., Huang, P., Murray, B. T., & Mahler, G. J. (2016). Shear stress magnitude and transforming growth factor-βeta 1 regulate endothelial to mesenchymal transformation in a three-dimensional culture microfluidic device. RSC Advances, 6(88), 85457-85467.