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Quantitative analysis of dynamic behavior of osteoblasts during in vitro formation of micro‐mass cell cultures
Author(s) -
Schäfer Susanne,
Dekiff Markus,
Plate Ulrich,
Szuwart Thomas,
Denz Cornelia,
Dirksen Dieter
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of biophotonics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.877
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1864-0648
pISSN - 1864-063X
DOI - 10.1002/jbio.201200169
Subject(s) - spheroid , cell , cell adhesion , osteoblast , chemistry , scaffold , adhesion , matrix (chemical analysis) , biological system , function (biology) , in vitro , tissue engineering , biomedical engineering , biophysics , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , biochemistry , organic chemistry , chromatography , medicine
Improvements in bone tissue engineering require an understanding of cellular and tissue level behavior of osteoblast‐like cells. Experiments indicate that in the absence of an anchoring material, intercellular adhesion may be based on signals that promote cell activity resulting in the formation of a spheroid cell‐matrix. The aim of the present study is to investigate the formation of scaffold‐free three‐dimensional micro‐mass cell spheroids in vitro, and to characterize quantitatively the cell movement. A new correlation based automated tracking method is evaluated in order to optimize the processing parameters and to identify statistical parameters that characterize the cell behavior. Results suggest that the temporal development of the mean distance of the cells to the center of gravity may be described by an exponential function, thus providing a characteristic time constant as a quantitative measure of cell dynamics. (© 2013 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)