Abstract:
Polymer-based biomaterials are popular due to ease of fabrication and low costs. However, many polymer substrates have undesirable surface properties. The invention provides a procedure to covalently apply a graft polymer to the surface of a polymer substrate by ultraviolet graft polymerization. The graft polymer is formed from monomers such as PEG, AA, monomethoxy acrylate PEG, HEMA, or DMA. Also, mixed monomers may be used to create the graft and the surface properties of the graft may be tailored for different properties, including hydrophobicity, friction coefficient, electroosmotic mobilities and electrophoretic separations. The invention has particular utility in tailoring surface chemistries in ocular lenses and polymer microdevices. I. II. R: -OH Acrylic Acid(AA) -NH 2 Acrylamide (AM) -N(CH 3 ) 2 Dimethylacrylamide (DMA) -OCH 2 CH 2 OH 2-Hydroxyethylacrylate (HEA) -O(CH 2 CH 2 O) n CH 3 PEG monomethyoxylacrylate (PEG)
Abstract:
A plate manufactured to enable samples of cells, micro-organisms, proteins, DNA, biomolecules and other biological media to be positioned at specific locations or sites on the plate for the purpose of performing addressable analyses on the samples. Preferably, some or all of the sites are built from a removable material or as pallets so that a subset of the samples of interest can be readily isolated from the plate for further processing or analysis. The plate can contain structures or chemical treatments that enhance or promote the attachment and/or function of the samples, and that promote or assist in their analyses. Use of the plate advantageously enables the selection and sorting of cells based on dynamic phenomena and the rapid establishment of stable tranfectants.
Abstract:
The activity of intracellular chemical reactions of molecules is measured by the use of fluorescently labeled substrate molecules (114) that undergo a change in electrophoretic mobility upon chemical reaction such as that catalyzed by an enzyme (112). Specificity is achieved by using labeled substrate molecules (114) that can be acted upon only by specific enzymes (112). Thus, the activity of a specific enzyme (112) or class of enzymes can be determined. Measurements are made with the intracellular presence of such substrate molecules (114), at some time of interest, typically after exposure of the cell (46) to a stimulus (118) that activates a particular enzymatic pathway. To ensure accuracy, measurements must be made in a timely manner so as to minimize chemical reactions occurring subsequent to the time of interest. Fast controllable laser lysis is used to obtain the contents of a single cell (46) into which reporter substrate molecules (114) have been introduced. The cell contents are then subjected to capillary eletrophoresis (22) and enzymatic activity is determined by comparing amounts of substrate molecules (114) to amounts of enzymatically altered substrate molecules (128) which are separated by the electrophoresis and identified by the presence of a fluorescent label.
Abstract:
The activity of intracellular chemical reactions of molecules is measured by the use of fluorescently labeled substrate molecules that undergo a change in electrophoretic mobility upon chemical reaction such as that catalyzed by an enzyme. Specificity is achieved by using labeled substrate molecules that can be acted upon only by specific enzymes. Thus the activity of a specific enzyme or class of enzymes can be determined. Measurements are made with the intracellular presence of such substrate molecules, at some time of interest, typically after exposure of the cell to a stimulus that activates a particular enzymatic pathway. To ensure accuracy, measurements must be made in a timely manner so as to minimize chemical reactions occurring subsequent to the time of interest. Fast controllable laser lysis is used to obtain the contents of a single cell into which reporter substrate molecules have been introduced. The cell contents are then subjected to capillary electrophoresis and enzymatic activity is determined by comparing amounts of substrate molecules to amounts of enzymatically altered substrate molecules which are separated by the electrophoresis and identified by the presence of a fluorescent label.
Abstract:
Polymer-based biomaterials are popular due to ease of fabrication and low costs. However, many polymer substrates have undesirable surface properties. The invention provides a procedure to covalently apply a graft polymer to the surface of a polymer substrate by ultraviolet graft polymerization. The graft polymer is formed from monomers such as PEG, AA, monomethoxy acrylate PEG, HEMA, or DMA. Also, mixed monomers may be used to create the graft and the surface properties of the graft may be tailored for different properties, including hydrophobicity, friction coefficient, electroosmotic mobilities and electrophoretic separations. The invention has particular utility in tailoring surface chemistries in ocular lenses and polymer microdevices. I. II. R: -OH Acrylic Acid(AA) -NH 2 Acrylamide (AM) -N(CH 3 ) 2 Dimethylacrylamide (DMA) -OCH 2 CH 2 OH 2-Hydroxyethylacrylate (HEA) -O(CH 2 CH 2 O) n CH 3 PEG monomethyoxylacrylate (PEG)
Abstract:
Fast lysis of a single cell or cellular component thereof is performed by generating a shock wave in a medium in which the cell or cellular component thereof is positioned. The cell or cellular component thereof is either positioned by laser tweezers or cultured as an adhered cell or cellular component thereof to minimize manipulation trauma. The disclosed method completely lyses a single cell or cellular component thereof in a controllable manner in milliseconds or less followed immediately by the loading of the cellular contents into a capillary for analyte separation and detection. The cell or cellular component thereof is adjacent the inlet of an electrophoretic column through which a gravity siphon flow of the medium is maintained. The lysed contents of the cell or cellular component thereof enter the electrophoretic column in less than 33 msec, are separated and analyzed by laser induced fluorescence. The method takes advantage of the shock wave produced by a highly focused laser pulse which is created in a medium adjacent to the cell or cellular component thereof. In the illustrated embodiment the laser pulse is focused in the glass substrate at or near a glass-to-buffer interface of a cell chamber in which the cell or cellular component thereof to be lysed has been cultured.
Abstract:
A method of introducing a fluorescent label into a cell, comprising: exposing a reporter to the cell, wherein the reporter comprises: a peptide substrate for an enzyme, a docking domain for the enzyme, attached to the peptide substrate, a membrane traversing moiety, and the label.
Abstract:
A plate manufactured to enable samples of cells, micro-organisms, proteins, DNA, biomolecules and other biological media to be positioned at specific locations or sites on the plate for the purpose of performing addressable analyses on the samples. Preferably, some or all of the sites are built from a removable material or as pallets so that a subset of the samples of interest can be readily isolated from the plate for further processing or analysis. The plate can contain structures or chemical treatments that enhance or promote the attachment and/or function of the samples, and that promote or assist in their analyses. Use of the plate advantageously enables the selection and sorting of cells based on dynamic phenomena and the rapid establishment of stable tranfectants.
Abstract:
A plate manufactured to enable samples of cells, micro-organisms, proteins, DNA, biomolecules and other biological media to be positioned at specific locations or sites on the plate for the purpose of performing addressable analyses on the samples. Preferably, some or all of the sites are built from a removable material or as pallets so that a subset of the samples of interest can be readily isolated from the plate for further processing or analysis. The plate can contain structures or chemical treatments that enhance or promote the attachment and/or function of the samples, and that promote or assist in their analyses.
Abstract:
Systems and methods for patterning biological and non-biological material at specific sites on a plate, as well as growing three dimensional structures. Preferred embodiments comprise a plate (6) with regions (16) that will trap gas, usually in the form of bubbles (10), when the plate (6) is submerged in liquid. Other embodiments of the present invention include a method for placing materials on the plate (6) at predetermined locations through the use of trapped gas to prevent materials from collecting at unwante regions. The plate (6) has great utility for plating cells and tissues (5) at specific sites, such as on an array. The disclosed method can also be used to coat the surface of a plate (6) at specific locations for patterned coating applications and to build up materials to produce three dimensional structures, including micromechanical structures where the structures may be formed from living or nonliving material, organic or inorganic, and the like.