Grace Poon, PhD: No relevant disclosure to display
Introduction/Rationale: Tissue environments are specialized to support distinct functions, but isolating high-quality cells in sufficient quantities is a major challenge. Manual dissociation methods are labor-intensive and limit throughput, while balancing enzymatic and mechanical approaches is time-consuming and technically demanding.
Methods: The STEMprep™ Tissue Dissociation System is an automated platform developed to standardize the preparation of single-cell suspensions and homogenates.
Results: The system consistently produces single-cell suspensions with high viability and yield from various mouse tissues, including spleen (96.9±1.2% viability; 1.1E8 ±3.6E7 cells/tissue), lung (90.3±3.8%; 2.0E7±4.0E6 cells/tissue), liver (89.7±2.4%; 2.8E7±8.9E6 cells/tissue), brain (88.5±2.8%; 2.8E6±1.2E6 cells/tissue), 4T1 tumors (89.5±3.0%; 2.5E4±1.0E4 cells/mg), and B16 melanomas (90.7±3.1%; 1.8E4±6.9E3 cells/mg). Importantly, cell surface marker integrity is preserved, with 88.8% of over 200 epitopes remaining stable post-dissociation. Processed cells are compatible with downstream applications such as EasySep™ immunomagnetic isolation, and the isolated cells remain functional in assays including microglial phagocytosis and T cell proliferation. The system also supports a homogenization protocol for extracting high-quality RNA.
Conclusion: In summary, the STEMprep™ system provides a robust, automated solution that enhances consistency, throughput, and efficiency to accelerate tissue research and discovery.
