Bioengineering / Biyomühendislik

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11147/4529

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  • Article
    Citation - Scopus: 11
    Μdacs Platform: a Hybrid Microfluidic Platform Using Magnetic Levitation Technique and Integrating Magnetic, Gravitational, and Drag Forces for Density-Based Rare Cancer Cell Sorting
    (Elsevier, 2023) Keçili, Seren; Yılmaz, Esra; Özçelik, Özge Solmaz; Anıl İnevi, Müge; Günyüz, Zehra Elif; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden; Özçivici, Engin; Tekin, Hüseyin Cumhur
    Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are crucial indicators of cancer metastasis. However, their rarity in the bloodstream and the heterogeneity of their surface biomarkers present challenges for their isolation. Here, we developed a hybrid microfluidic platform (microfluidic-based density-associated cell sorting (µDACS) platform) that utilizes density as a biophysical marker to sort cancer cells from the population of white blood cells (WBCs). The platform utilizes the magnetic levitation technique on a microfluidic chip to sort cells based on their specific density ranges, operating under a continuous flow condition. By harnessing magnetic, gravitational, and drag forces, the platform efficiently separates cells. This approach involves a microfluidic chip equipped with a microseparator, which directs cells into top and bottom outlets depending on their levitation heights, which are inversely proportional to their densities. Hence, low-density cancer cells are collected from the top outlet, while high-density WBCs are collected from the bottom outlet. We optimized the sorting efficiency by varying the flow rates, and concentrations of the sorting medium's paramagnetic properties using standard densities of polymeric microspheres. To demonstrate the platform's applicability, we performed hybrid microfluidic sorting on MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells and U-937 human monocytes. The results showed efficient sorting of rare cancer cells (≥100 cells/mL) from serum samples, achieving a sorting efficiency of ∼70% at a fast-processing speed of 1 mL h−1. This label-free approach holds promise for rapid and cost-effective CTC sorting, facilitating in-vitro diagnosis and prognosis of cancer. © 2023 The Author(s)
  • Research Project
    Erişkin kök hücrelerinde doku yönelimi ve dış mekanik etkilere bağlı gelişen altyapısal değişikliklerin karakterizasyonu
    (TÜBİTAK - Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu, 2015) Özçivici, Engin; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden; Meşe Özçivici, Gülistan
    Mekanik titreşim uygulanması hem kemik hücrelerinde mineralizasyonu arttırdığı hem de kemik iliğindeki kök hücrelerini kemik yönelimine soktuğu için kemik kütlesini arttırıcı bir etkiye sahiptir. Mekanik sinyaller ayrıca yağ dokusu oluşumunu kemik iliği ve diğer yağ depolarında engeller özelliklere sahiptir. Kemik ve yağ hücrelerinin ortak bir hücre tipinden geldikleri düşünülürse, mekanik titreşim sinyalleri kullanılarak kemik oluşumu arttırılırken eşzamanlı olarak yağ oluşumu azaltılabilir. Halihazırda kemik iliği kök hücrelerinin bu tip mekanik titreşim sinyallerine duyarlı olup olmadığı ve eğer duyarlıysa bu sinyallere nasıl adapte olduğu henüz net olarak bilinmemektedir. Burada fare kemik iliğinden alınan mezenkimal D1-ORL-UVA kök hücreleri atıl durumda, kemik yöneliminde ya da yağ yönelimindeyken günlük mekanik titreşimlere (0.15g, 90 Hz, 15dk/gün) 7 gün boyunca maruz bırakıldı ve bu titreşimlerin hücrelerde yarattığı hücresel, morfolojik ve moleküler değişimler araştırıldı. Atıl durumdaki kök hücrelerde mekanik sinyaller hücre üremesini, hücrelerin toplam aktin miktarını ve kalınlığını arttırdığı gözlendi. Kemik yönelimi sırasında da mekanik sinyaller toplam aktin miktarı, aktin kalınlığı ve hücrelerin membran pürüzlülüklerini arttırdılar. Yağ yönelimi sırasında ise uygulanan mekanik kuvvetlerin hücrelerin yağ biriktirmesinden kaynaklanan morfolojik ve altyapısal etkileri geri çevirdiği gözlendi. Mekanik titreşimlerin ayrıca tüm yönelimler için hücrelerarası iletişimi arttırdıkları gözlendi. Sonuçlar yüksek frekanslı ve düşük genlikli mekanik titreşimlerin mezenkimal kök hücrelerin yönelimlerini belirleyen faktörlere önemli etkilerde bulunduklarını düşündürmektedir. Klinik aşamaya ulaşabilirse bu sonuçlar ilaçtan bağımsız bir etkinin kemik erimesi ve obezite için kullanılabileceğini düşündürmektedir.
  • Conference Object
    Detection and Restoration Pipeline for Phase Contrast Microscopy Time Series Images
    (IEEE, 2022) Iheme, Leonardo O.; Uçar, Mahmut; Önal, Sevgi; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden; Pesen Okvur, Devrim; Töreyin, Behçet U.; Ünay, Devrim
    We propose a pre-processing pipeline for the de-tection and restoration of distorted frames in phase-contrast microscopy time-series images. The analysis is based on the average intensity values of the frames within any given time- series image. The extent of the correction of intensity variation in frames is determined by the normalization of the difference between the current frame's average intensity and the median of average intensity of all frames. Our restoration algorithm preserves regional trans-passing pixels, does not cause new distortions, and increases the histogram similarity between the distorted and non-distorted frames. The algorithm was validated on 15,395 time-series image frames from 27 experiments and the results were found to be visually and quantitatively accurate.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 7
    Citation - Scopus: 7
    Connexin 32 Overexpression Increases Proliferation, Reduces Gap Junctional Intercellular Communication, Motility and Epithelial-To Transition in Hs578t Breast Cancer Cells
    (Springer, 2022) Uğur, Deniz; Güngül, Taha Buğra; Yücel, Simge; Özçivici, Engin; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden; Meşe Özçivici, Gülistan
    Connexins (Cx) are primary components of gap junctions that selectively allow molecules to be exchanged between adjacent cells, regulating multiple cellular functions. Along with their channel forming functions, connexins play a variety of roles in different stages of tumorigenesis and their roles in tumor initiation and progression is isoform- and tissue-specific. While Cx26 and Cx43 were downregulated during breast tumorigenesis, Cx32 was accumulated in the cytoplasm of the cells in lymph node metastasis of breast cancers and Cx32 was further upregulated in metastasis. Cx32's effect on cell proliferation, gap junctional communication, hemichannel activity, cellular motility and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) were investigated by overexpressing Cx32 in Hs578T and MCF7 breast cancer cells. Additionally, the expression and localization of Cx26 and Cx43 upon Cx32 overexpression were examined by Western blot and immunostaining experiments, respectively. We observed that MCF7 cells had endogenous Cx32 while Hs578T cells did not and when Cx32 was overexpressed in these cells, it caused a significant increase in the percentages of Hs578T cells at the S phase in addition to increasing their proliferation. Further, while Cx32 overexpression did not induce hemichannel activity in either cell, it decreased gap junctional communication between Hs578T cells. Additionally, Cx32 was mainly observed in the cytoplasm in both cells, where it did not form gap junction plaques but Cx32 overexpression reduced Cx43 levels without affecting Cx26. Moreover, migration and invasion potentials of Hs578T and migration in MCF7 were reduced upon Cx32 overexpression. Finally, the protein level of mesenchymal marker N-cadherin decreased while epithelial marker ZO-1 and E-cadherin increased in Hs578T cells. We observed that Cx32 overexpression altered cell proliferation, communication, migration and EMT in Hs578T, suggesting a tumor suppressor role in these cells while it had minor effects on MCF7 cells.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 12
    Citation - Scopus: 12
    Sema6d Differentially Regulates Proliferation, Migration, and Invasion of Breast Cell Lines
    (American Chemical Society, 2022) Günyüz, Zehra Elif; Sahi İlhan, Ece; Küçükköse, Cansu; İpekgil, Doğaç; Tok, Güneş; Meşe, Gülistan; Özçivici, Engin; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden
    Semaphorin 6D (SEMA6D), a member of the class 6 semaphorin family, is a membrane-associated protein that plays a key role in the development of cardiac and neural tissues. A growing body of evidence suggests that SEMA6D is also involved in tumorigenesis. In breast cancer, high SEMA6D levels are correlated with better survival rates. However, very little is known about the functional significance of SEMA6D in breast tumorigenesis. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the effects of SEMA6D expression on the normal breast cell line MCF10A and the breast cancer cell lines MCF7 and MDA MB 231. We demonstrated that SEMA6D expression increases the proliferation of MCF10A cells, whereas the opposite effect was observed in MCF7 cells. SEMA6D expression induced anchorage-independent growth in both cancer cell lines. Furthermore, migration of MCF10A and MCF7 cells and invasion of MDA MB 231 cells were elevated in response to SEMA6D overexpression. Accordingly, the genes related to epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) were altered by SEMA6D expression in MCF10A and MCF7 cell lines. Finally, we provided evidence that SEMA6D levels were associated with the expression of the cell cycle, EMT, and Notch signaling pathway-related genes in breast cancer patients' data. We showed for the first time that SEMA6D overexpression has cell-specific effects on the proliferation, migration, and invasion of normal and cancer breast cell lines, which agrees with the gene expression data of clinical samples. This study lays the groundwork for future research into understanding the functional importance of SEMA6D in breast cancer
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 24
    Citation - Scopus: 30
    Hologlev: a Hybrid Magnetic Levitation Platform Integrated With Lensless Holographic Microscopy for Density-Based Cell Analysis
    (American Chemical Society, 2021) Delikoyun, Kerem; Yaman, Sena; Yılmaz, Esra; Sarıgil, Öykü; Anıl İnevi, Müge; Telli, Kübra; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden
    In clinical practice, a variety of diagnostic applications require the identification of target cells. Density has been used as a physical marker to distinguish cell populations since metabolic activities could alter the cell densities. Magnetic levitation offers great promise for separating cells at the single cell level within heterogeneous populations with respect to cell densities. Traditional magnetic levitation platforms need bulky and precise optical microscopes to visualize levitated cells. Moreover, the evaluation process of cell densities is cumbersome, which also requires trained personnel for operation. In this work, we introduce a device (HologLev) as a fusion of the magnetic levitation principle and lensless digital inline holographic microscopy (LDIHM). LDIHM provides ease of use by getting rid of bulky and expensive optics. By placing an imaging sensor just beneath the microcapillary channel without any lenses, recorded holograms are processed for determining cell densities through a fully automated digital image processing scheme. The device costs less than $100 and has a compact design that can fit into a pocket. We perform viability tests on the device by levitating three different cell lines (MDA-MB-231, U937, D1 ORL UVA) and comparing them against their dead correspondents. We also tested the differentiation of mouse osteoblastic (7F2) cells by monitoring characteristic variations in their density. Last, the response of MDA-MB-231 cancer cells to a chemotherapy drug was demonstrated in our platform. HologLev provides cost-effective, label-free, fully automated cell analysis in a compact design that could be highly desirable for laboratory and point-of-care testing applications.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 22
    Citation - Scopus: 24
    Scaffold-Free Biofabrication of Adipocyte Structures With Magnetic Levitation
    (John Wiley and Sons Inc., 2021) Sarıgil, Öykü; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden; Anıl İnevi, Müge; Meşe Özçivici, Gülistan; Fıratlıgil Yıldırır, Burcu; Fıratlıgil Yıldırır, Burcu; Ünal, Yağmur Ceren; Ünal, Yağmur Ceren; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden; Özçivici, Engin; Meşe, Gülistan; Sarıgil, Öykü; Özçivici, Engin; Anıl İnevi, Müge; Meşe Özçivici, Gülistan
    Tissue engineering research aims to repair the form and/or function of impaired tissues. Tissue engineering studies mostly rely on scaffold-based techniques. However, these techniques have certain challenges, such as the selection of proper scaffold material, including mechanical properties, sterilization, and fabrication processes. As an alternative, we propose a novel scaffold-free adipose tissue biofabrication technique based on magnetic levitation. In this study, a label-free magnetic levitation technique was used to form three-dimensional (3D) scaffold-free adipocyte structures with various fabrication strategies in a microcapillary-based setup. Adipogenic-differentiated 7F2 cells and growth D1 ORL UVA stem cells were used as model cells. The morphological properties of the 3D structures of single and cocultured cells were analyzed. The developed procedure leads to the formation of different patterns of single and cocultured adipocytes without a scaffold. Our results indicated that adipocytes formed loose structures while growth cells were tightly packed during 3D culture in the magnetic levitation platform. This system has potential for ex vivo modeling of adipose tissue for drug testing and transplantation applications for cell therapy in soft tissue damage. Also, it will be possible to extend this technique to other cell and tissue types.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 16
    Citation - Scopus: 18
    Connexin 32 Induces Pro-Tumorigenic Features in Mcf10a Normal Breast Cells and Mda-Mb Metastatic Breast Cancer Cells
    (Elsevier, 2020) Yalçın Özuysal, Özden; Adak, Aslı; Ünal, Yağmur Ceren; Yücel, Simge; Vural, Zehra; Turan, Fatma Başak; Meşe, Gülistan
    Connexins (Cx), the basic subunit of gap junctions, play important roles in cell homeostasis, and their abnormal expression and function are associated with human hereditary diseases and cancers. In tumorigenesis, connexins were observed to have both anti-tumorigenic and pro-tumorigenic roles in a context- and stage-dependent manner. Initially, Cx26 and Cx43 were thought to be the only connexins involved in normal breast homeostasis and breast cancer. Later on, association of Cx32 expression with lymph node metastasis of breast cancer and subsequent demonstration of its expression in normal breast tissue suggested that Cx32 contributes to breast tissue homeostasis. Here, we aimed to determine the effects of Cx32 on normal breast cells, MCF10A, and on breast cancer cells, MDA-MB-231. Cx32 overexpression had profound effects on MCF10A cells, decreasing cell proliferation by increasing the doubling time of MCF10A. Furthermore, MCF10A cells acquired mesenchymal-like appearance upon Cx32 expression and had increased migration capacity and expression of both E-cadherin and vimentin. In contrast, Cx32 overexpression altered the EMT markers of MDA-MB-231 by increasing the expression of mesenchymal markers, such as slug and vimentin, and decreasing E-cadherin expression without affecting their proliferation and morphology. Our results indicate, for the first time in the literature, that Cx32 has tumor-promoting roles in MCF10A and MDA-MB-231 cells.
  • Conference Object
    Citation - WoS: 7
    Citation - Scopus: 11
    Cell Segmentation of 2d Phase-Contrast Microscopy Images With Deep Learning Method
    (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2019) Ayanzadeh, Aydın; Yağar, Hüseyin Onur; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden; Pesen Okvur, Devrim; Töreyin, Behçet Uğur; Unay, Devrim; Önal, Sevgi
    The quantitative and qualitative ascertainment of cell culture is integral to the robust determination of the cell structure analysis. Microscopy cell analysis and the epithet structures of cells in cell cultures are momentous in the fields of the biological research process. In this paper, we addressed the problem of phase-contrast microscopy under cell segmentation application. In our proposed method, we utilized the state-of-the-art deep learning models trained on our proposed dataset. Due to the low number of annotated images, we propose a multi-resolution network which is based on the U-Net architecture. Moreover, we applied multi-combination augmentation to our dataset which has increased the performance of segmentation accuracy significantly. Experimental results suggest that the proposed model provides superior performance in comparison to traditional state-of-the-art segmentation algorithms.
  • Conference Object
    Citation - WoS: 3
    Citation - Scopus: 4
    Biofabrication of Cellular Structures Using Weightlessness as a Biotechnological Tool
    (IEEE, 2019) Anıl İnevi, Müge; Sarıgil, Öykü; Yaman, Sena; Yalçın Özuysal, Özden; Meşe, Gülistan; Tekin, Hüseyin Cumhur; Özçivici, Engin
    Gravity is an important biomechanical signal effecting the morphology and function of organisms. Reduction of gravitational forces, as experienced during spaceflight, cause alterations in the biological systems. Magnetic levitation technique is one of the most recent ground-based technology to mimic weightlessness environment. In addition to providing a platform to investigate biological effects of the weightlessness, this platform presents a novel opportunity to biofabricate 3-dimensional (3D) structures in a scaffold-and nozzle-free fashion. In this study, various controllable self-assembled 3D living structures were fabricated via magnetic levitation technique. This strategy may offer an easy and cost-effective opportunity for a wide range of space biotechnology researches.