Shaping Up

Researchers in fields as diverse as neuroscience, angiogenesis, and regenerative medicine are discovering that the surfaces their cultured cells grow on may be as important as the media they're grown in. Cells grown in traditional two-dimensional cultures in flasks and wells have different topology, architecture, and viscoelasticity compared with cells grown in vivo. This affects a host of cell parameters, such as morphology, growth, and polarity. Two-dimensional cultures also neglect the role that the extracellular matrix plays in informing a cell's decisions, as well as in providing a physical space in which to form 3-D structures. "Most phenotypes that we're following now are not revealed in 2-D," says Joan Brugge, who studies glandular formation ex vivo at Harvard Medical School.