Stem Cell Differentiation
Monitoring stem cell, ES or iPS, differentiation by manual methods can be a time consuming, tedious and error prone. Cells often have to be cultured for extended periods of time (>10 days) requiring several trips from the incubator to the microscope in order to find and capture images of the developing cells.
Cell-IQ® has been used extensively to study stem cell differentiation as cells can be cultured and monitored safely for long periods of time. Having the image capture and analysis procedures automated significantly reduces hands on time and ensures images are analysed in a consistent manner for the entire experiment so reproducible results are obtained.
The example data below was generated from a study of ES cells exposed to Lif and retanoic acid. ES cells are maintained in an undifferentiated state by the addition of Lif. However, if retanoic acid (RA) is added to the culture media the cells will begin to differentiate. The captured images were analysed to determine the number of differentiated cells and the area of ES cell colony.
ES cells plus Lif ES cells plus Lif and RA
Analysed image ES cells plus Lif Analysed image ES cells plus Lif and RA
Areas of colony (green) and differentiated cells (red) can be clearly identified and quantified.
