Petrarch® silane used in the manufacture of a custom microchip used in the study of CNS axon growth
In a recent publication titled A microchip for quantitative analysis of CNS axon growth under localized biomolecular treatments, Journal of Neuroscience Methods,221, (2014) 166-174, (doi:10.1016/j.jneumeth.2013.09.018) tridecafluoro-1, 1, 2, 2- tetrahydrooctytrichlorosilane (T2492) from UCT Specialties, LLC was used to vapor coat cast molded poly(methylmethacrylate) and PDMS parts.
A microchip manufactured from PDMS was capable of physically guiding the growth direction of axons while providing physical and fluidic isolation from neuronal somata/dendrites enabling localized biomolecular treatments and linear axon growth. The tridecafluoro-1, 1, 2, 2- tetrahydrotrichlorosilane served as a mold release.
The neurons were obtained from the forebrains of embryonic day 16 Sprague-Dawley rats. The reported axon growth in this study were as high as 63% greater than the original tissue length were reported in this evaluation. The reported values of the Soma growth was as high as 45%.
This is the first step towards utilizing a microchip to better understand the mechanism of CNS axon growth.
Petrarch Silanes manufactured by UCT Specialties are widely used by researchers in the medical device and biotechnology communities. With its broad understanding of the life sciences and silane chemistry, UCT Specialties is a strong partner for researchers in these fields.