Jenny Deng- Week 3: Beginning Research at Dr. Spector's Lab

This week I worked with Sophia and Xue of Dr. Spector's lab in isolating adipocytes from breast adipose tissue. It was quite shocking to discover that the tissue came to the lab in a bucket. It was also interesting to see that the adipose tissue was textbook-color yellow. From my understanding, human adipose tissue appears yellow because carotene (a yellow pigment from food) does not metabolize quickly in humans and settles in white adipose tissue, giving them the yellow appearance. This differs greatly from murine tissue, which I've seen my lab member Garrett isolate previously. The adipose tissue required intensive manual labor, i.e., mechanical dissociation of the tissue into smaller pieces using a scissor. After mincing for about 15-20 minutes, an enzymatic mixture of collagenase and hyaluronidase was added to the tissue, allowed to incubate for an hour, and then centrifuged. The resulting solution separated into the different parts. From top to bottom, we have the layer of free lipid, adipocytes, a fibrous layer, and media (see figure below). 

In other news, as I am learning from these medical researchers, I am also hoping to offer my knowledge on how to make spheroids for their experiments. So this week, we prepared a methylcellulose solution required in the spheroid forming process. 






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