Quantitative Phase Imaging to Study the Effect of Sodium Dodecyl Surfactant on Adherent L929 Fibroblasts on Tissue Culture Plates

Decellularization is the process of removing cellular components from native tissues or organs to obtain an acellular, collagenous scaffold for use in tissue engineering and organ regeneration. Surfactants are widely used to produce acellular scaffolds for clinical applications. However, cell-surfactants interactions have not been studied in depth. Cell-surfactant interaction was studied in a time-lapsed manner using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) solution (surfactant) on adherent L929 fibroblasts as a test solution, phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solution as control solution (isotonic), and deionized water as positive test solution (hypotonic), respectively. The QPI results show changes in the relative height and cross-sectional area of the cells, with various test solutions and exposure times. In particular, it was observed that the removal of the cell with SDS involved the disruption of the cellular membrane and detachment of the cell contents from the adhering surface. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using the QPI technique to understand the decellularization process.