A programmable, open-source robot that scratches cultured tissues to investigate cell migration, healing, and tissue sculpting.

Journal: Cell reports methods
PMID: 39657682

Abstract

Despite the widespread popularity of the "scratch assay," where a pipette is dragged manually through cultured tissue to create a gap to study cell migration and healing, it carries significant drawbacks. Its heavy reliance on manual technique can complicate quantification, reduce throughput, and limit the versatility and reproducibility. We present an open-source, low-cost, accessible, robotic scratching platform that addresses all of the core issues. Compatible with nearly all standard cell culture dishes and usable directly in a sterile culture hood without specialized training, our robot makes highly reproducible scratches in a variety of complex cultured tissues with high throughput. Moreover, the robot demonstrates precise removal of tissues for sculpting arbitrary tissue and wound shapes, enabling complex co-culture experiments. This system significantly improves the usefulness of the conventional scratch assay and opens up new possibilities in complex tissue engineering for realistic wound healing and migration research.

Authors

  • Yubin Lin
    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
  • Alexander Silverman-Dultz
    School of Arts and Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
  • Madeline Bailey
    School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02134, USA.
  • Daniel J Cohen
    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA; Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. Electronic address: danielcohen@princeton.edu.

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