Fluxion Biosciences - Applications (Cellular Biology, Microbiology, Ephys)

Applications

Cellular Adhesion

Cell adhesion is responsible for countless biological phenomena in health and disease. Cell adhesion assays range from simple cell-ligand interactions to sophisticated cell-cell interactions. These cell-cell or cell –matrix interactions, governed by inter-protein or protein-carbohydrate based molecular communication, play an important role in directing cell migration, gene expression, developmental differentiation and programmed cell death. Cell adhesion molecules can be co-opted by other cell types in the body and contribute to inflammation and metastatic diseases.

Fluxion's BioFlux System uniquely operates as a versatile, high throughput system for running cell adhesion experiments under controlled shear effectively mimicking the shear flow range found in the human vasculature. With BioFlux, all aspects of cell adhesion can be studied on the same platform, including:

Rolling adhesion
	Jurkat cells rolling on VCAM-1 at 2 dyn/cm² shear stress. After channels were coated with ligand and blocked, Jurkat cells were introduced and images were captured at 10 frames/sec. Average rolling velocity can be calculated using the BioFlux Software Image Stacker Module.

Firm adhesion
	Calcein AM stained Jurkat cells adhering to VCAM-1 after treatment with anti-VLA4 antibodies. In contrast to screening bulk fluorescence to quantitate adhesion, unusual phenomena such as cell clumping due to antibody-induced homotypic fusion (top of image) can be characterized by microscopy and morphometry.

Pharmacological interactions / drug screening
	High-throughput compound screens for drug dose response can be performed under physiological conditions in the BioFlux system, with multiple replicates. Shown here are the results of a IC₅₀ screen of Jurkat cells treated with three inhibitors of adhesion to VCAM-1, similar to those used to treat MS.

Specialized Adhesion Applications:

More information can be found in our Cellular Biology Application Notes.