Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering
Invertebrate Retinal Progenitors As Regenerative Models In A Microfluidic System, Caroline D. Pena, Stephanie Zhang, Robert Majeska, Tadmiri Venkatesh, Maribel Vazquez
Invertebrate Retinal Progenitors As Regenerative Models In A Microfluidic System, Caroline D. Pena, Stephanie Zhang, Robert Majeska, Tadmiri Venkatesh, Maribel Vazquez
Publications and Research
Regenerative retinal therapies have introduced progenitor cells to replace dysfunctional or injured neurons and regain visual function. While contemporary cell replacement therapies have delivered retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) within customized biomaterials to promote viability and enable transplantation, outcomes have been severely limited by the misdirected and/or insuffcient migration of transplanted cells. RPCs must achieve appropriate spatial and functional positioning in host retina, collectively, to restore vision, whereas movement of clustered cells differs substantially from the single cell migration studied in classical chemotaxis models. Defining how RPCs interact with each other, neighboring cell types and surrounding extracellular matrixes are critical to …
Collective Chemotaxis Of Retinal Neural Cells From Drosophila Melanogaster In Controlled Microenvironments, Stephanie Zhang
Collective Chemotaxis Of Retinal Neural Cells From Drosophila Melanogaster In Controlled Microenvironments, Stephanie Zhang
Dissertations and Theses
More than 172 million people are influenced by a retinal disorder that stems from either age-related or developmental causes. Of those, 1.5 million people endure a developmental retinal disorder. In the developing retina, neural cells undergo a series of highly complicated differentiation and migration process. A main cause of these diseases is abnormal collective migration of neural progenitors hindering the retinogenesis process. However, our grasp of collective migration and signaling molecules, critical to the developing retina, is incompletely understood. Understanding the molecular mechanisms, such as the fibroblast growth factor pathway, that regulate glial and neuronal migration provides decisive insights in …
A Drosophila Model To Examine Collective Migration During Retinogenesis, Caroline Pena, Stephanie Zhang, Mildred Kamara, Tadmiri Venkatesh, Maribel Vazquez
A Drosophila Model To Examine Collective Migration During Retinogenesis, Caroline Pena, Stephanie Zhang, Mildred Kamara, Tadmiri Venkatesh, Maribel Vazquez
Publications and Research
Retinal dysfunction is often caused by aberrant neural cell migration during development. In this study, we observed the migration of neural cells of the Drosophila melanogaster after marking cells of the 3rd instar larvae with the GAL4-UAS expression system when exposed to a concentration gradient of FGF-8 through the use of a microfluidic device. The glial and neuronal cell ratio in the developing brain was determined through immunofluorescent staining and observation. In future studies, a microfluidic device that mimics the developing Drosophila brain and retina will be designed in order to better understand the biological factors that affect the migration …
Controlled Microfluidics To Examine Growth-Factor Induced Migration Of Neural Progenitors In The Drosophila Visual System, Cade Beck, Tanya Singh, Angela Farooqi, Tadmiri Venkatesh, Maribel Vazquez
Controlled Microfluidics To Examine Growth-Factor Induced Migration Of Neural Progenitors In The Drosophila Visual System, Cade Beck, Tanya Singh, Angela Farooqi, Tadmiri Venkatesh, Maribel Vazquez
Publications and Research
BACKGROUND:
The developing visual system in Drosophila melanogaster provides an excellent model with which to examine the effects of changing microenvironments on neural cell migration via microfluidics, because the combined experimental system enables direct genetic manipulation, in vivo observation, and in vitro imaging of cells, post-embryo. Exogenous signaling from ligands such as fibroblast growth factor (FGF) is well-known to control glia differentiation, cell migration, and axonal wrapping central to vision.
NEW METHOD:
The current study employs a microfluidic device to examine how controlled concentration gradient fields of FGF are able to regulate the migration of vision-critical glia cells with and …
Low Concentration Microenvironments Enhance The Migration Of Neonatal Cells Of Glial Lineage, Richard A. Able, Jr., Celestin Ngnabeuye, Cade Beck, Eric C. Holland, Maribel Vazquez
Low Concentration Microenvironments Enhance The Migration Of Neonatal Cells Of Glial Lineage, Richard A. Able, Jr., Celestin Ngnabeuye, Cade Beck, Eric C. Holland, Maribel Vazquez
Publications and Research
Glial tumors have demonstrated abilities to sustain growth via recruitment of glial progenitor cells (GPCs), which is believed to be driven by chemotactic cues. Previous studies have illustrated that mouse GPCs of different genetic backgrounds are able to replicate the dispersion pattern seen in the human disease. How GPCs with genetic backgrounds transformed by tumor paracrine signaling respond to extracellular cues via migration is largely unexplored, and remains a limiting factor in utilizing GPCs as therapeutic targets. In this study, we utilized a microfluidic device to examine the chemotaxis of three genetically-altered mouse GPC populations towards tumor conditioned media, as …