Abstract
Diamagnetic samples placed in a strong magnetic field and a magnetic field gradient experience a magnetic force. Stable magnetic levitation occurs when the magnetic force exactly counter balances the gravitational force. Under this condition, a diamagnetic sample is in a simulated microgravity environment. The purpose of this study is to explore if MC3T3-E1 osteoblastic cells can be grown in magnetically simulated hypo-g and hyper-g environments and determine if gene expression is differentially expressed under these conditions. The murine calvarial osteoblastic cell line, MC3T3-E1, grown on Cytodex-3 beads, were subjected to a net gravitational force of 0, 1 and 2 g in a 17 T superconducting magnet for 2 days. Microarray analysis of these cells indicated that gravitational stress leads to up and down regulation of hundreds of genes. The methodology of sustaining long-term magnetic levitation of biological systems are discussed.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 311-318 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Microgravity Science and Technology |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2009 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge support of this research through NIH grants 1R21EB003947 and 1S10RR16783-01, and the computational resources from Supercomputing Institute for Advanced Computational Research of the University of Minnesota.
Keywords
- MC3T3
- Magnetic levitation
- Microgravity
- Osteoblastic cell