What kind of cultureware do you recommend for Air Liquid Interface (ALI) cultures?

Answer

When generating air liquid interface or ALI cultures, you will need to create a dual compartment model that can be separated by a microporous membrane such as Transwell®, Falcon® or BioCoat® permeable supports.

ALI studies are performed on permeable supports typically coated with collagen type I, type IV, or a combination of collagen types I and III. Researchers can use pre-coated permeable supports, such as Corning BioCoat Collagen I cell culture inserts, or choose to apply the coating themselves. Permeable support inserts with a 0.4 µM pore size are commonly used for ALI studies, although other pore size inserts may also be used depending on the application.

Regarding the choice of cultureware format it will depend on the end user’s application. For example, if you are growing 3D organotypic skin equivalent model, a larger size formats, such as 6-well permeable support inserts, 100 mm dish or a rectangular tray would be best suited. Whereas for studies related to drug screening, using an HTS format, such as 96-well permeable supports would be an ideal format. The 24-well permeable supports are one of the most commonly used formats although the 12-well or 6-well formats are also used based on end-user’s application. Multi-well companion plates, such as Falcon® 6-well Deep Well Plates, are long-term culture solutions that can reduce the frequency of media changes, save on labor, and minimize contamination risk. Corning offers a permeable support selection guide which walks through how to select your membrane type, pore size, format and surface treatment most appropriate for your application.