Spatiotemporal quantification of acoustic cell patterning using Voronoi Tessellation
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Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Acoustic patterning using ultrasound standing waves has recently emerged as a potent biotechnology enabling the remote generation of ordered cell systems. This capability has opened up exciting opportunities, for example, in guiding the development of organoid cultures or the organization of complex tissues. The success of these studies is often contingent on the formation of tightly-packed and uniform cell arrays; however, a number of factors can act to disrupt or prevent acoustic patterning. Yet, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no comprehensive assessment of the quality of acoustically-patterned cell populations. In this report we use a mathematical approach, known as Voronoï tessellation, to generate a series of metrics that can be used to measure the effect of cell concentration, pressure amplitude, ultrasound frequency and biomaterial viscosity upon the quality of acoustically-patterned cell systems. Moreover, we extend this approach towards the characterization of spatiotemporal processes, namely, the acoustic patterning of cell suspensions and the migration of patterned, adherent cell clusters. This strategy is simple, unbiased and highly informative, and we anticipate that the methods described here will provide a systematic framework for all stages of acoustic patterning, including the robust quality control of devices, statistical comparison of patterning conditions, the quantitative exploration of parameter limits and the ability to track patterned tissue formation over time.
Date Issued
2019-02-21
Date Acceptance
2018-11-30
Citation
Lab on a Chip, 2019, 19 (4), pp.562-573
ISSN
1473-0189
Publisher
Royal Society of Chemistry
Start Page
562
End Page
573
Journal / Book Title
Lab on a Chip
Volume
19
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019. This open access article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
License URL
Sponsor
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Wellcome Trust
Commission of the European Communities
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Arthritis Research UK
Grant Number
MR/K026682/1
098411/Z/12/Z
ERC-2013-CoG-616417
MR/R015651/1
MR/S00551X/1
21138
Subjects
03 Chemical Sciences
09 Engineering
Analytical Chemistry
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2019-01-22