Magnetic attachment and cell patterning on glass substrates for wound healing experiments

Following procedures previously described in (14), N42 grade magnets (Supermagnete) were placed at the external side of the glass substrates previously glued on the drilled bottoms of a six-well plate. MAts were then carefully placed upon the micropatterned PDMS substrates already glued on the glass substrates. Cells were seeded with a pipette in the space delimited by the MAt and allowed to establish initial adhesion for 1 hour. After 1 hour, the sample was fully covered with fresh medium.

Cells were incubated for 3 hours (MDCK) or 5 hours (HDF) to reach full adhesion to the substrate. To start wound healing experiments, magnets were carefully removed from underneath the glass substrates, allowing MAts to detach and float in the cell culture medium. Cells were rinsed twice with fresh medium before imaging.