How Do You Like Them Apples? Cellulose Scaffolds Seeded with Mammalian Cells

 

Alp Oran, Karine Loiselle, Lucille Joly, & Cindy Lesage-Pelletier

Advances in Biology Laboratory Education, 2020, Volume 41

https://doi.org/10.37590/able.v41.art15

Abstract

3D scaffolds offer certain advantages over traditional 2D culturing techniques, notably an environment that more closely mimics the in vivo conditions. We include protocols that describe how to prepare and decellularize cellulose-rich scaffolds from different varieties of fruit and vegetables before re-seeding with a non-plant cell line, in this case, the mouse myoblast cell line, C2C12. Using a simple cell staining technique – the DNA stain, methyl green – and a transmitted light microscope, non-host derived cells were visible within the cellulose chambers of the apple scaffold. These protocols have been modified and tested over two iterations of a third year undergraduate Cell Biology lab course. The success of these experiments in the students’ hands has meant the inexpensive addition of 3D cell culture techniques to the lab course curriculum.

Keywords:  microscopy, cell culture, animal cells, apple, 3D, 2D, scaffold

University of Ottawa (2019)