ThinCert™ Cell Culture Inserts

For advanced cell and tissue culture applications, Greiner Bio-One offers an extensive family of membrane supports - ThinCert™. Combining 6 different membrane specifications (pore size and density) in geometries to fit 6,12 and 24 well plates, the ThinCert™  cell culture inserts are suitable for a wide range of applications including transport, secretion and diffusion studies, migrational experiments, cytotoxicity testing, co-cultures, trans epithelial electric resistance (TEER) measurements, as well as primary cell culture. 

ThinCert™ cell culture inserts are compatible with standard CELLSTAR® multiwall plates from Greiner Bio-One, and are pre-packed together with the requisite number of plates. The automated production process includes double optical control of each insert produced, ensuring that any biological contamination is avoided. The sterility of the single blisterpacked inserts and multiwall plates is ensured by irradiation.

 

ThinCert™ cell culture inserts are produced from high-grade clear polystyrene housings, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) capillary pore membranes. Both materials, polystyrene and PET, are USP class VI certified and cell culture compatible. The coupling between the housing and the membrane is achieved using an automated process which produces an extremely strong and robust seal without compromising or weakening the membrane in any way. The membranes undergo a physical surface treatment to optimise cellular adherence and growth characteristics. All the capillary pores in a membrane exhibit a high degree of uniformity in diameter. This uniformity ensures reliable and consistent exchange rates between the two compartments and thus provides reproducibility when conducting multiple experiments.

• Small pore sizes (0.4 and 1 μm in diameter) for co-cultivation as well as for transportation, secretion, and diffusion studies
• Larger pore sizes (3 and 8 μm in diameter) for migration and invasion studies
• Transparent membranes (in general low pore density) suitable for light and electron microscopy not suited for all applications requiring high diffusion rates such as transport studies
• Translucent membranes (in general high pore density) suitable for electron microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, confocal microscopy, TEER and transport studies

ThinCert™ cell culture inserts with porous PET membranes are versatile tools for the generation of cell-based models for tumor cell invasion, transepithelial transport and paracrine cell-cell interactions. While already the PET mem brane with its standard TC treatment provides a superb substrate for adherent cell culture, coating with collagen type I severely enhances cellular growth and differentiation processes. Greiner Bio-One offers ThinCert™ cell culture inserts coated with collagen type I. The applied industrial coating process assures for a maximum coating quality with minimum batch-to-batch variation. Collagen type I coated ThinCert™ cell culture inserts are suited for a multitude of applications in organotypic culture with enhanced cell growth and differentiation. For example, Caco 2 cells grown on collagen type I coated ThinCert™ for 14 days reveal a differentiation status seen after more than three weeks with non-coated controls. Also the formation of the epithelial barrier is accelerated as seen in the Lucifer Yellow permeability test.