We examine a vast, interdisciplinary, and increasingly global literature concerning skin color and colorism, which are related to status throughout the world. The vast majority of research has investigated Western societies, where color and colorism have been closely related to race and racism. In Latin America, the two sets of concepts have particularly overlapped. In the rest of the world, particularly in Asia, color and colorism have also been important but have evolved separately from the relatively new concepts of race and racism. In recent years, however, color consciousness and white supremacy appear to have been increasingly united, globalized, and commodified, as exemplified by the global multibillion-dollar skin-lightening industry. Finally, we document the growing methodological attention to measurements of skin color and social science data that incorporate skin color measures.

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Methods to detect immuno-labelled molecules at increasingly higher resolution, even when present at low levels, are revolutionizing immunohistochemistry (IHC). These technologies can be valuable for management and examination of rare patient tissue specimens, and for improved accuracy of early disease detection. The purpose of this mini-review is to highlight recent multiplexing methods that are candidates for more prevalent use in clinical research and potential translation to the clinic. Multiplex IHC methods, which permit identification of at least 3 and up to 30 discrete antigens, have been divided into whole section staining and spatially-patterned staining categories. Associated signal enhancement technologies that can enhance performance and throughput of multiplex IHC assays are also discussed. Each multiplex IHC technique, detailed herein, is associated with several advantages as well as tradeoffs that must be taken into consideration for proper evaluation and use of the methods.

Culturing cells in three-dimensional (3D) environments has been shown to significantly influence cell function, and may provide a more physiologically relevant environment within which to study the behavior of specific cell types. 3D tissues typically present a topologically complex fibrous adhesive environment, which is technically challenging to replicate in a controlled manner. Micropatterning technologies have provided significant insights into cell-biomaterial interactions, and can be used to create fiber-like adhesive structures, but are typically limited to flat culture systems; the methods are difficult to apply to topologically-complex surfaces. In this work, we utilize crack formation in multilayered microfabricated materials under applied strain to rapidly generate well-controlled and topologically complex ‘fiber-like’ adhesive protein patterns, capable of supporting cell culture and controlling cell shape on three-dimensional patterns. We first demonstrate that the features of the generated adhesive environments such as width, spacing and topology can be controlled, and that these factors influence cell morphology. The patterning technique is then applied to examine the influence of fiber structure on the nuclear morphology and actin cytoskeletal structure of cells cultured in a nanofibrous biomaterial matrix.

We have adapted our existing compression-induced fracture technology to cell culture studies, by generating linear patterns on a complex cell culture well structure, rather than on simple solid constructs. We present a simple method to create 1D, submicron, linear patterns of extracellular matrix on a multilayer silicone material. We identified critical design parameters necessary to optimize compression-induced fracture patterning on the wells, and applied stresses using compression Hoffman clamps. Finite-element analyses show that the incorporation of the well improves stress homogeneity (stress variation = 25%), and, thus, crack uniformity over the patterned region. Notably, a shallow well with a thick base (vs. deeper wells with thinner bases) reduces out-of-plane deflections by greater than a sixth in the cell culture region, improving clarity for optical imaging. The comparison of cellular and nuclear shape indices of a neuroblast line cultured on patterned 1D lines and unpatterned 2D surfaces reveals significant differences in cellular morphology, which could impact many cellular functions. Since 1D cell cultures recapitulate many important phenotypical traits of 3D cell cultures, our culture system offers a simple means to further study the relationship between 1D and 3D cell culture environments, without demanding expensive engineering techniques and expertise.

We present a method to create plasma mediated linear protein patterns along the lengths of simple one-inlet-one-outlet straight polydimethylsiloxane microchannels by biasing the delivery of corona discharge at the capillary openings. Pattern widths ranging from 500-1,000 microm were generated in 2 mm wide microchannels with lengths of 0.5, 1.0, or 1.5 cm. Corona-treated surfaces enabled the spatial alignment of C2C12 myoblasts to the adhesive protein-coated regions, facilitating myoblast differentiation into myotubes. Although limited in precision, this protein patterning technique offers the advantages of simplicity and low cost, making it attractive for educational and research environments that lack access to extensive microfabrication facilities. The results also provide a cautionary note to those using corona discharge to increase wettability of microchannels; the surface modification may not be uniform, even within single microchannels being treated depending on settings and positioning of the corona device tips.

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