CyGEL Thermoreversible Gel

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 Thermoreversible Gel has been formulated to transition from liquid to gel at 21°C (i.e. 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 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. Immobilising cells with CyGEL™ is a convenient method for analysing 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 colour 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™.