In a new research study from Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan, scientist investigated the influence of chronic inflammation on infectious phenotypes encountered with ulcerative colitis (UC), a disease of the bowels.
Author: Marco Bedolla
Gold-coated silicon wafers provide inherent electrical properties that can be used in electrochemical applications. Platypus Technologies silicon substrates are carefully engineered to serve as high-performance electrodes.
Gold-coated silicon substrates can promote molecule attachment and result in self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) in AFM, force spectroscopy, and mass spectroscopy applications. The high-purity and uniformity of gold-coated substrates provide the ideal surface for characterization methods.
Platypus Technologies currently offers coatings of gold, silver, and platinum and now we are launching a new product: Copper coatings.
New STM imaging study reveals stunning atomic-scale details on Ultra-flat Gold Surfaces.
Ultra-flat gold surfaces enable high signal-to-noise imaging for AFM and STM applications. Because of their ultra-smooth topography, these surfaces have been used to study 2D materials, single strands of DNA, self-assembled monolayers, nano-plasmonic devices, and cell membrane monolayers.
Cell invasion across the basement membrane is an important step in cancer metastasis. In this blog, we discuss cell invasion assays and their application for cancer research. Metastasis occurs when cancer cells pass through the basement membrane of the organ where they originated, and subsequently spread into different organs of the body, where they form secondary tumors [1].
Cell migration is integral to many physiological processes, including embryonic development, tissue regeneration, and wound healing. In addition, cell migration is involved in tumor metastasis and atherosclerosis. One assay commonly used to study cell migration in vitro is the scratch assay. The scratch assay is performed by creating a cell-free gap, or “scratch”, on a confluent cell monolayer upon which cells at the edge of the opening move inward to close the scratch. Cell migration can be assessed by comparing images captured at the onset of the scratch creation and at user-defined intervals during scratch closure. The scratch assay is straightforward to perform and is inexpensive. However, methods for creating the scratch vary from lab to lab and results can be highly variable. Furthermore, the process of scratch formation has been shown to damage the underlying extracellular matrix (ECM).
This application note describes a method to measure cell migration, using ImageJ, by counting the number of cells that have migrated into the Detection Zone in an Oris™ Cell Migration Assay. ImageJ is a freeware image analysis program developed at the National Institutes of Health.
Experiments show that surface coatings play an important role in cell movement
When performing cell migration experiments, a perennial question is: what surface coatings should be used to culture a particular cell type? Scientists working in Cancer Research, Wound Healing, or Drug Discovery utilize cell cultures to make important experiments and advance our understanding of biological mechanisms. In particular, assays for cell migration enable characterization of conditions and substances that influence movement of cells. For example, scientists using the OrisTM Cell Migration Assays successfully identified proteins, mRNA and antioxidants that inhibit migration of tumor cells.
We create gold coatings and surfaces for Surface Plasmon Resonance, IR/Raman Spectroscopy and other applications in optics.