Figure 1
From: Mechanisms of cell damage due to mechanical impact: an in vitro investigation
(a) Schematic of the drop-tower-based integrated system for characterizing the biological response of live cells due to rapid acceleration associated with mechanical impact. The inset (zoom-in view of Area A) on the right shows the structures of the cell culture setup (highlighted by Area B) and the holder with electrical connections for data acquisition. (b) Shows the experimental protocol to study acceleration-induced cell damage utilizing both the live cell microscopy and drop tower based instrument. (c) An image of an assembled holder with a cell culture setup for a drop tower experiment. (b-i) Prepare multiple cell culture petri dishes and monitor them using live cell imaging capability in the incubator. All the prepared cell culture dishes are placed on a tray in a cell culture incubator and a motorized optical objective is used to take live cell images for all dishes at specific time intervals (see the arrows). When cell populations reach a specific target stage, e.g., 35–40% confluency in the cell growth curve, (b-ii) each petri dish is assembled with a holder for drop tower experiments (c shows a petri dish assembled with a cell culture setup, see Figure S1 for more details). (b-iii) After a drop tower experiment, a petri dish is disassembled from the cell culture setup and placed in a cell culture incubator for continuing live cell imaging.
