Cell microarrays

The application of defined amounts of cells at defined locations is an important topic in cellular biotechnology, e.g. in the field of tissue engineering, cell analysis and transfection arrays. The controlled release of living cells onto the corresponding substrate is crucial. With the technology available at the institute, living cells can be dispensed specifically onto surfaces to make them available for further investigations. The survival rate of the cells is up to 95 %.  Thus, a technique is available to address a wide range of different questions. In transfection arrays the cells are dispensed onto a mixture of transfection reagent and DNA, which causes the cells to take up the DNA. The DNA can be protein-coding vectors or RNAi constructs, for example. After transfection, the cells can be characterized. With this method it is possible to test a large number of DNA constructs in parallel and under identical conditions. Another application of cell microarrays is the dispensing of different cell types onto (pre-)structured surfaces. This allows on the one hand to study and characterize the interaction of the cells and on the other hand to create tissue-like structures and cell populations.