Aggregated cell cultures, examples

One might speculate that seeds arise from mutant forms of protein. For some of the discussed diseases this could be proven in cell culture models. Proteins like Huntingtin, amyloid-P and alpha-synuclein aggregate in vitro and in transfected COS cells. Models of SCA-3 show nuclear inclusions with wildtype and mutated protein [14]. Another example for this situation is found in AD plaques, where a peptide with a partial alpha-synuclein sequences seeds P-amyloid polymerization in vitro [32]. 

Besides solid material surfaces, functional water-soluble polymers have also been created to promote cell-cell adhesion in aqueous media. For example, cell adhesion peptides of RGD or tyrosine-isoleucine-glycine-serine-arginine (YIGSR) have been attached to the ends of biofunctional PEG and shown to induce neural cell aggregation in culture media. ° ... 

Fig. 1 Examples of 2D and 3D cell culturing. (A) Illustration of 2D flat cell culturing platform and 3D cell culturing. (B) Phase contrast micrographs of 2D monolayer embryoid body cells at day 5 (scale bar 200 pm) and (C) embryoid body cells in 3D scaffold at day 5 (scale bar 500 pm). Arrows show cells migrated from an aggregate. The migrated cells became cordhke and multilayer structures, which were not existed in 2D cultures (Adapted from [4]). (D) Phase contrast micrographs of SKOV-3 cells grown in 2D and (E) in 3D environment (Adapted from [5]). Scale bar 100pm.

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