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In This Article

  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Protocol
  • Representative Results
  • Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Materials
  • References
  • Reprints and Permissions

Summary

We present a microfluidic system for high throughput studies on complex life machinery, which consists of 1500 culture units, an array of enhanced peristaltic pumps and an on-site mixing modulus. The microfluidic chip allows for the analysis of the highly complex and dynamic micro-environmental conditions in vivo.

Abstract

Mimicking in vivo environmental conditions is crucial for in vitro studies on complex life machinery. However, current techniques targeting live cells and organs are either highly expensive, like robotics, or lack nanoliter volume and millisecond time accuracy in liquid manipulation. We herein present the design and fabrication of a microfluidic system, which consists of 1,500 culture units, an array of enhanced peristaltic pumps and an on-site mixing modulus. To demonstrate the capacities of the microfluidic device, neural stem cell (NSC) spheres are maintained in the proposed system. We observed that when the NSC sphere is exposed to CXCL in day 1 and EGF in day 2, the round-shaped conformation is well maintained. Variation in the input order of 6 drugs causes morphological changes to the NSC sphere and the expression level representative marker for NSC stemness (i.e., Hes5 and Dcx). These results indicate that dynamic and complex environmental conditions have great effects on NSC differentiation and self-renewal, and the proposed microfluidic device is a suitable platform for high throughput studies on the complex life machinery.

Introduction

High throughput techniques are crucial for biomedical and clinical studies. By parallelly conducting millions of chemical, genetic, or live cell and organoid tests, researchers can rapidly identify genes that modulate a bio-molecular pathway, and customize sequential drug input to one's specific needs. Robotics1 and microfluidic chips in combination with a device control program allow complex experimental procedures to be automated, covering cell/tissue manipulation, liquid handling, imaging, and data processing/control2,3. Therefore, hundreds and thousands of experimental conditions ca....

Protocol

1. Microfluidic chips design

  1. Design the microfluidic multiplexer consisting of 18 inlets, each of which is controlled by an individual valve and a peristaltic pump. To increase the liquid volume driven by per pumping cycle, have the peristaltic pump be composed of 3 control channels, which was purposely widened to 200 µm, and 10 connected flow lines.
  2. Design the shear-free culture chamber. Replication of the 2-level culture unit is composed by a lower cell culture chamber (400 µm x 400 .......

Representative Results

The conventional on-chip peristaltic pump was firstly described by Stephen Quake in 2000, using which the peristalsis was actuated by the pattern 101, 100, 110, 010, 011, 001 8,10. The number 0 and 1 indicate "open" and "close" of the 3 horizontal control lines. Studies using more than 3 valves (e.g., five) have also been reported11. Even though the peristaltic pump composed by 3 control lines and 3 flow lines provides nano.......

Discussion

Various microfluidic devices have been developed to perform multiplexed and complex experiments17,18,19,20. For example, microwells made of an array of topological recesses can trap individual cells without the use of external force, showing advantageous characters including small sample size, parallelization, lower material cost, faster response, high sensitivity21.......

Acknowledgements

Authors acknowledge the technical support from Zhifeng Cheng of Chansn Instrument (China) LTD. This work was supported by grants (National Natural Science Foundation of China,51927804).

....

Materials

NameCompanyCatalog NumberComments
2713 Loker Avenue WestTorrey pines scientific
AZ-50XAZ Electronic Materials, Luxembourg
Chlorotrimethylsilane(TMCS) 92360-25mLSigma
CO2 Incubator HP151Heal Force
Desktop Hole Puncher for PDMS chips WH-CF-14Suzhou Wenhao Microfluidic Technology Co., Ltd.
DMEM(L-glutamine, High Glucose, henol Red)Invitrogen
Electronic Balance UTP-313 Max:600g, e:0.1g, d:0.01gShanghai Hochoice Apparatus Manufacturer Co.,LTD.
FBSSigma
Fibronection 0.25 mg/mLMillipore, Austria
Glutamax 100xGibco
Heating Incubator BGG-9240AShanghai bluepard instruments Co.,Ltd.
Nikon Model Eclipse Ti2-ENikon
Pen/Strep 10 Units/mL Penicillin 10 ug/mL StreptomycinInvitrogen
Plasma cleaner PDC-002Harrick Plasma
polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS)Momentive
polylysine 0.01%Sigma
Spin coater ARE-310Awatori Rentaro
Spin coater TDZ5-WSCence
Spin coater WH-SC-01Suzhou Wenhao Microfluidic Technology Co., Ltd.
SU-8 3025MicroChem, Westborough, MA, USA
SU-8 3075MicroChem, Westborough, MA, USA

References

  1. Michael, S., et al. A robotic platform for quantitative high-throughput screening. Assay and Drug Development Technologies. 6 (5), 637-657 (2008).
  2. Kim, S. J., Lai, D., Park, J. Y., Yokokawa, R., Takayama, S.

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Microfluidic DeviceHigh throughputDynamic Environmental ConditionsCell CulturePeristaltic PumpShear free CultureStem Cell DifferentiationOrgan on chip

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