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Over recent decades there has been and continues to be major advances in the imaging, diagnosis and potential treatment of medical conditions, by the use of magnetic nanoparticles. However, to date the majority of cell delivery studies employ a traditional 2D monolayer culture. This article aims to determine the ability of various sized magnetic nanoparticles to penetrate and travel through a cell seeded collagen gel model, in the presence or absence of a magnetic field. Three different sized (100, 200, and 500 nm) nanoparticles were employed in the study. The results showed cell viability was unaffected by the presence of nanoparticles over a 24-h test period. The initial uptake of the 100 nm nanoparticle into the collagen gel structure was superior compared to the larger sized nanoparticles under the influence of a magnetic field and incubated for 24 h. Interestingly, it was the 200 nm nanoparticles, which proved to penetrate the gel furthest, under the influence of a magnetic field, during the initial culture stage after 1-h incubation. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research Part B: Applied Biomaterials Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 103B: 1294-1301, 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multicellular spheroids are an established system for three-dimensional cell culture. Spheroids are typically generated using hanging drop or non-adherent culture; however, an emerging technique is to use magnetic levitation. Herein, mesenchymal stem cell spheroids were generated using magnetic nanoparticles and subsequently cultured within a type I collagen gel, with a view towards developing a bone marrow niche environment. Cells were loaded with magnetic nanoparticles, and suspended beneath an external magnet, inducing self-assembly of multicellular spheroids. Cells in spheroids were viable and compared to corresponding monolayer controls, maintained stem cell phenotype and were quiescent. Interestingly, core spheroid necrosis was not observed, even with increasing spheroid size, in contrast to other commonly used spheroid systems. This mesenchymal stem cell spheroid culture presents a potential platform for modelling in vitro bone marrow stem cell niches, elucidating interactions between cells, as well as a useful model for drug delivery studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]