Composition and architecture of the extracellular matrix dictate cell behavior. Proteoglycans bind multiple components of the extracellular matrix by serving as important regulators of cell behavior. Given the influence of culture architecture on cell function, we investigated whether switching NIH3T3 fibroblasts from growth on type 1 collagen in monolayer to a collagen gel might influence derm...

Cell culture technique has been used for detection and confirmation of many different viruses in clinical samples. Although, new diagnostic methods have been developed for viral infections, traditional cell culturetechnique is still regarded as the “gold standard” for several infectious agents such as human cytomegalovirus(HCMV). In the present study, a new human fetal foreskin fibr...

The formation, maintenance, and repair of biological tissues rely on the interaction of cells with other cell types and with their extracellular matrix [2, 3]. These cellular communications can be bi-directional or multi-dimensional and may occur at both macroand micro-scales. Depending on the hypothesis of interest, co-culture models are used to discern the individual and collective effects of...

Deregulation of molecular pathways controlling cell survival and death, including programmed cell death, are thought to be important factors in tumor formation, disease progression, and response to therapy. Studies devoted to analyzing the role of programmed cell death in cancer have been carried out primarily using conventional monolayer cell culture systems. However the majority of cancers gr...

Bile ducts are hepatic tubular structures that are lined by cholangiocytes, a type of liver epithelial cell. Cholangiocytes first form a single layer of cells, termed the ductal plate, surrounding the portal vein, which eventually remodels into the branching tubular network of bile ducts. The process of bile duct morphogenesis is not yet clear: a conventional model where cholangiocytes prolifer...

OBJECTIVE Studies on the biology of the human meniscus cell are scarce. The objective of our studies was to assess survival/proliferation of human meniscus cells in different culture conditions and to characterize the extracellular matrix (ECM) produced by these cells in these artificial environments. The composition of this ECM offers a variable to define the distinct meniscus cell phenotype. ...

A previous publication documented a sarcomatous transformation observed in cell line derived from rat lymphoma growing monolayer culture. (9) The morphological and cytogenetic changes found, suggested the presence of virus differentiation malignant lymphoblasts toward histiocytes present paper describes, under electron microscope structural features original tumor, cells culture sarcoma. This s...

The goal of our studies was to characterize the interrelationship between extracellular matrix organization and fibroblast proliferation in response to growth factors. We compared fibroblasts in monolayer culture with cells in contracted collagen matrices that were mechanically stressed or relaxed. In response to platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), DNA synthesis by fibroblasts in mechanicall...