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Section 4: FAQ
Q1: What are the characteristics of the silicone chamber?
A1: The strain chamber is made from silicone elastomer consisting of polydimethylsiloxane as its
major component. The chamber surface is strongly hydrophobic and cells have difficulty
attaching to it; therefore, the chamber surface should be coated with an extra-cellular matrix like
fibronectin, collagen, laminin, or gelatin before cultivation.
Q2: Cell attachment on the stretch chamber is not consistent.
A2: There may be wrinkles or bubbles on the bottom surface of the strain chamber when seeding
cells. Although the chamber is carefully made not to have wrinkles on it, some products might
have little wrinkles due to its thin structure. We recommend the following steps. Using a Petri
dish that is large enough to hold the chamber, add a small volume of ethanol. Place one end of
the chamber in the ethanol and lay the chamber down by slowly moving toward the opposite
end of the chamber without trapping air bubbles between the dish and the chamber. The thin
layer of ethanol between the dish and the chamber will remove any wrinkles in the chamber
membrane. Allow the ethanol to evaporate before spreading your cell suspension in the
chamber.
Q3. Cell attachment on the stretch chamber was confirmed by microscopy. But the cells detached
from the chamber surface after stretching the cells.
A3: Try seeding your chambers at a lower concentration of cells. In typical cell culture dishes, over-
confluent cells generally adhere to neighboring cells rather than to the base matrix (dish
surface). This behavior is exaggerated when an excess number of cells are seeded into a
stretch chamber.
A second possibility for cell detachment is that the cells were damaged by enzyme treatment such
as trypsin.
The damaged cells may attach to surfaces by non-specific binding and are not specifically bound
to the extra-cellular matrix coating on the chamber; therefore, time, concentration, and temperature
for the enzyme treatment should be optimized to reduce cell damage.
A third possibility is insufficient coating of the chamber preventing the cells from attaching to the
chamber. In this case, longer coating time is recommended.
Some researchers coat the chamber with two or more kinds of the extra-cellular matrix materials to
