CyGEL™ is a thermo-reversible hydrogel. It is a liquid when cooled and gel when warm. It is compatible with and non-toxic to cells, tissues and model organisms such as zebrafish. CyGEL Sustain Thermoreversible Gel has been formulated to transition from liquid to gel at room temperature, allowing immobilization of non-adherent (suspension) cells, beads, micro-tissues, parasites, worms, and embryos (such as drosophila), which can be recovered non-destructively by cooling and/or over-dilution using cold buffer.
CyGel Sustain has applications in microplate cytometry, high content screening, fluorescence microscopy, in vitro toxicology, and apoptosis studies.
CyGEL Sustain™ can be used in the analysis of cell death and apoptosis. Immobilizing cells with CyGEL Sustain™ is a convenient method for analyzing live and dead cell populations generated from adherent cultures or suspension cultures. FLICA caspase inhibitor reagents, DRAQ5™ (cell-permeant DNA dye) and DRAQ7™ (live cell impermeant DNA dye) fluorescent reagents can be incorporated into CyGEL™ to provide in situ staining of cells or used as pre-stains for cell samples prior to immobilization. An interesting feature of DRAQ5™ and DRAQ7™ dyes is the intense blue color imparted to cells successfully stained – these cells can be readily seen in the cell pellets of suspension cells prepared by centrifugation – providing a visual check on the efficiency of cell harvesting if this is used prior to preparation with CyGEL Sustain™.
