AgarSqueezer
AgarSqueezer was developed and manufactured in France by Idylle Labs
What is AgarSqueezer intended for?
AgarSqueezer is a microscope slide chamber equipped with a molded agar-based compression system. Use it to assess cell response to short and long-term mechanical confinement within a physiological rigidity range.
It is very helpful if you want to analyze how your cells will react if you squeeze them for a prolonged period. Or if you want to study how mechanical confinement affects drug cell resistance. And if you want to perform immunostaining in situ.
Kit Description:
You can choose among 2 kits:
- The “1 AgarSqueezer kit” contains 1 AgarSqueezer device
- The “2 AgarSqueezers kit” contains 2 AgarSqueezers devices.
In addition to the device, each kit contains also:
- 1 x insert to hold up to 2 AgarSqueezers on the microscope stage
- 1 x 16G flat cut needle to make holes in the agar gel, facilitating diffusion of culture medium or drugs during the experiment
- 1 x 20G flat cut needle (same)
For users who also need a wafer to mold agarose, we can provide it in 4 different heights:
- 2.5 µm to highly confine cells
- 5 µm to moderately confine cells
- 30 µm not to confine cells (negative control)
- 100 µm for 3D confinement
Features
- Tunable stiffness in a physiological range [1-150] kPa – Use of agarose as a cheap and biocompatible polymer.
- Open access to the reservoir – Possibility to add drugs, and reagents. Easy medium renewal.
- Autoclavable and reusable systems.
- Compatibility with multiple microscopy techniques – Confocal, spinning, super-resolution. Open access for microscope objectives. Use of optical glass coverslip to make cells grow.
- Easy to recover coverslip with cells for subsequent molecular analysis – FACS, qPCR, Western-Blot, Immunoflourescence (possible in situ).
- Long-term analysis of the cell adaptation to confinement – Up to several days, for time-lapse studies.
- Study of the specific impact of mechanical loads on the biology of cells – Gas permeability of the system allows to get rid of the hypoxia conditions.
- Easy to assemble and disassemble the system