Co-pathological states of tau proteins in a 3D micropatterned neural cell culture

In vitro studies of Alzheimer’s disease are based on homogenously seeded neural cells. These studies reveal molecular pathway mechanism related to neurite degeneration, but they cannot analyze interactions between diseased and healthy cells. Furthermore, the cell environment in homogenous cell studies is mostly reduced to a two-dimensional surface. Here, we present a novel, microfluidic based cell culture method that combines (1) 3D micropatterning of neurons with (2) local pa- thological states of tau phosphorylation, a characteristic feature of Alzheimer diseased brains. Using this novel 3D Alzhei- mer model in vitro we can accelerate studies about propagation processes in future.