Ultrasound-Induced Cell–Cell Interaction Studies in a Multi-Well Microplate

Abstract

This review describes the use of ultrasound for inducing and retaining cell-cell contact in multi-well microplates combined with live-cell fluorescence microscopy. This platform has been used for studying the interaction between natural killer (NK) cells and cancer cells at the level of individual cells. The review includes basic principles of ultrasonic particle manipulation, design criteria when building a multi-well microplate device for this purpose, biocompatibility aspects, and finally, two examples of biological applications: Dynamic imaging of the inhibitory immune synapse, and studies of the heterogeneity in killing dynamics of NK cells interacting with cancer cells.

Keywords

• ultrasound
• lab-on-a-chip
• acoustofluidics
• acoustic trapping
• natural killer cells