Next Generation NanoCulture® Plate

MBL International (formerly Organogenix and Scivax Life Sciences), offers the Next Generation Nanoculture® Plate for 3D cell Culturing. The Next Generation Nanoculture® Plate (NGP) is engineered with an evenly patterned nano-scale structure on a propietary plastic film attached to the bottom of the plate/dish. The pattern mimics the extracellular matrix and allows cells to migrate across the plate and form healthy spheroids.

In addition, the pattern eliminates the need for any kind of biological/gel or matrix, allows for easy handling, and is fully compatible with lab apparatus, imaging apparatus, and high throughput screening systems. The plate is also compatible for drug screening, co-culture assay, EMT assay, hepatotoxicity assay, ADME assay, primary cell culture, stem cell culture and differentiation.

It is well known that scaffold is very important for 3D cell culture to mimic tissue micro environment. However, working with gels are always a cumbersome procedure in terms of HTS or any kind of assay development. Therefore, researchers can use our plate instead of a gel platform and receive better biological relevance data compared to other plates, because the cells are free to move on NGP and form spheroids. As a result, no gravity force or external materials are needed.

NanoCulture® Technologies for 3D Cell Culture                                                                                                         Totally gel-free but scaffold-type 3D cell culture method - Micro-structure acts like a scaffold for cells

Nanoculture® Next Generation Plate (NGP) is engineered with an evenly patterned nano-scale structure on a proprietary plastic film which is the plate bottom surface. This pattern mimics the extracellular matrix and supports the cell to form cell spheroids.  This nano-scale structure controls the adhesion of cells to the film, and enhances cell migration and proliferation while cells form spheroids.

Nano-scale patterned well-bottom film                                                                                                           Structural color is observed, due to the interference of light by nano-scale pattern.

 HeLa cell spheroid attaching to the nano-scale structure of film                        Several cells constituting a spheroid, contact the well-bottom film,  grip and  attach to nano-scale pattern using pseudopodium.  Data provided  by: Prof.  Hideo Namiki, Waseda University

Spheroid formation mechanism on Next Generation NanoCulture® Plate (NGP)

Cells seeded on a Next Generation Plate (NGP), grip and attach to the nano-scale pattern on a culture surface.  Cells start migrating randomly and dynamically as they do not adhere strongly to the base film thanks to the micro-structure, unlike conventional monolayer cell culture.  Cells contact and adhere to each other while migrating on the surface,  and  form spheroids, accompanied by proliferation at the same time.  Spheroid growth reaches a plateau as the culture period  progresses.

 Chronological change of spheroid size of HepG2 cells

Box plot of spheroid diameter obtained from HepG2 cells cultured for 7 days on NGP (96 well plate) at 10,000 cells/well. Spheroids keep growing as culture period progresses, while it reaches to a plateau in approximately one week.

Structure of culture surface - Left: Microsquare (MS), Right: Microhoneycomb (MH)

Advantages of Next Generation NanoCulture® Plate

Easy to Use > Same as conventional monolayer culture plates. After opening the package, just add cell suspension into wells.

Good Microscopic Observation > Capable of parfocal observation for all spheroids within the view field. Fully compatible with HTS imagers, confocal and convention

Reproducibility > Coating reagents free. No biological materials. Made of plastic material, with almost no lot-to-lot variation.

High Cell Viability > Nano-scale scaffold allows natural migration and formation of spheroids resulting in high proliferation compared to  scaffold free 3D platforms.

Natural Spheroid Formation > Scaffold system eliminates the need for any external forces in spheroid formation. 

Large Scale Preparation of Spheroids > 35mmΦ dish with the same technology is available.  It is suitable for large scale 3D cell culture.

Comparative Table of NGP and Other 3D Cell Culture Methods

Spheroid morphology on Next Generation NanoCulture® Plate

Spheroid morphology is totally depending on cell characteristics (migration, proliferation, intracellular adhesion molecules expression, or degree of differentiation). Typically, it can be classified into 4 types.

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