Microfluidic platform with four orthogonal and overlapping gradients for soluble compound screening in regenerative medicine research

Metabolic Switching of Tumor Cells under Hypoxic Conditions in a Tumor-on-a-chip Model

Hypoxia switches the metabolism of tumor cells and induces drug resistance. Currently, no therapeutic exists that effectively and specifically targets hypoxic cells in tumors. Development of such therapeutics critically depends on the availability of in vitro models that accurately recapitulate hypoxia as found in the tumor microenvironment. Here, we report on the design and validation of an easy-to-fabricate tumor-on-a-chip microfluidic platform that robustly emulates the hypoxic tumor microenvironment. The tumor-on-a-chip model consists of a central chamber for 3D tumor cell culture and two side channels for medium perfusion. The microfluidic device is fabricated from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), and oxygen diffusion in the device is blocked by an embedded sheet of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). Hypoxia was confirmed using oxygen-sensitive probes and the effect on the 3D tumor cell culture investigated by a pH-sensitive dual-labeled fluorescent dextran and a fluorescently labeled glucose analogue. In contrast to control devices without PMMA, PMMA-containing devices gave rise to decreases in oxygen and pH levels as well as an increased consumption of glucose after two days of culture, indicating a rapid metabolic switch of the tumor cells under hypoxic conditions towards increased glycolysis. This platform will open new avenues for testing anti-cancer therapies targeting hypoxic areas.

Exploring microfluidics as a tool to evaluate the biological properties of a titanium alloy under dynamic conditions

When evaluating the biological properties of titanium under dynamic conditions, cell proliferation was shown to be dominant over cell differentiation.

Diameter-definable tubing-microchips for applications in both continuous-flow and TEC-modulated on-chip qPCRs with reaction signal analyzed between different types of Teflon-polymers: PTFE and FEP

Recently, the tubing microfluidic system has attracted significant research interest because it waives complicated microfabrication machineries and bonding procedures during the manufacture of microchips; however, due to the limited dimensions in the market, the commercially available micro-tubes are generally fixed in diameters and are unmodifiable in radius; this makes it a challenge to obtain a randomly defined channel-dimension for a tubing microsystem. To solve this problem, herein, we proposed a novel and simple method to obtain a tubing-channel with gradually changed diameter. Both the tensile forces and spectrophotometric properties have been analyzed in this study for systemic characterization; as a proof-of-concept, the inner diameter (ID) of a fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) tube has been modified from 0.5 mm to 0.3 mm, and the FEP tube has been further applied to both the thermoelectric (TEC)-modulated on-chip polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) and the continuous flow on-chip PCRs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that an FEP tube with so small ID has been applied to on-chip qPCRs. Based on the comparison with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) regarding the fluorescence signal inside the tube, it can be verified that FEP has much better detection sensitivity than PTFE although these two materials are reckoned to be belonging to the same type of polymer family, generally referred to as Teflon.

Development of a microfluidic platform integrating high-resolution microstructured biomaterials to study cell-material interactions

Microfluidic screening platforms offer new possibilities for performing in vitro cell-based assays with higher throughput and in a setting that has the potential to closely mimic the physiological microenvironment. Integrating functional biomaterials into such platforms is a promising approach to obtain a deeper insight into the interactions occurring at the cell-material interface. The success of such an approach is, however, largely dependent on the ability to miniaturize the biomaterials as well as on the choice of the assay used to study the cell-material interactions. In this work, we developed a microfluidic device, the main component of which is made of a widely used biocompatible polymer, polylactic acid (PLA). This device enabled cell culture under different fluidic regimes, including perfusion and diffusion. Through a combination of photolithography, two-photon polymerization and hot embossing, it was possible to microstructure the surface of the cell culture chamber of the device with highly defined geometrical features. Furthermore, using pyramids with different heights and wall microtopographies as an example, adhesion, morphology and distribution of human MG63 osteosarcoma cells were studied. The results showed that both the height of the topographical features and the microstructural properties of their walls affected cell spreading and distribution. This proof-of-concept study shows that the platform developed here is a useful tool for studying interactions between cells and clinically relevant biomaterials under controlled fluidic regimes.

Development of a shear stress-free microfluidic gradient generator capable of quantitatively analyzing single-cell morphology

Microfluidics, the science of engineering fluid streams at the micrometer scale, offers unique tools for creating and controlling gradients of soluble compounds. Gradient generation can be used to recreate complex physiological microenvironments, but is also useful for screening purposes. For example, in a single experiment, adherent cells can be exposed to a range of concentrations of the compound of interest, enabling high-content analysis of cell behaviour and enhancing throughput. In this study, we present the development of a microfluidic screening platform where, by means of diffusion, gradients of soluble compounds can be generated and sustained. This platform enables the culture of adherent cells under shear stress-free conditions, and their exposure to a soluble compound in a concentration gradient-wise manner. The platform consists of five serial cell culture chambers, all coupled to two lateral fluid supply channels that are used for gradient generation through a source-sink mechanism. Furthermore, an additional inlet and outlet are used for cell seeding inside the chambers. Finite element modeling was used for the optimization of the design of the platform and for validation of the dynamics of gradient generation. Then, as a proof-of-concept, human osteosarcoma MG-63 cells were cultured inside the platform and exposed to a gradient of Cytochalasin D, an actin polymerization inhibitor. This set-up allowed us to analyze cell morphological changes over time, including cell area and eccentricity measurements, as a function of Cytochalasin D concentration by using fluorescence image-based cytometry.

A perforated microhole-based microfluidic device for improving sprouting angiogenesis in vitro

Microfluidic technology is an important research tool for investigating angiogenesis in vitro. Here, we fabricated a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic device with five cross-shaped chambers using a coverslip molding method. Then, the perforated PDMS microhole arrays prepared by soft lithography were assembled in the device as barriers; a single microhole had a diameter of 100 μm. After injecting type I collagen into the middle gel chamber, we added a culture medium containing a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) into the middle chamber. It would generate a linear concentration gradient of VEGF across the gel region from the middle chamber to the four peripheral chambers. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were then seeded on the microhole barrier. With VEGF stimulation, cells migrated along the inner walls of the microholes, formed annularly distributed cell clusters at the gel-barrier interface, and then three-dimensionally (3D) sprouted into the collagen scaffold. After 4 days of culture, we quantitatively analyzed the sprouting morphogenesis. HUVECs cultured on the microhole barrier had longer sprouts than HUVECs cultured without the barrier (controls). Furthermore, the initial distribution of sprouts was more regular and more connections of tube-like structures were generated when the microhole barrier was used. This study introduces a novel microfluidic device containing both microtopographic structures and 3D collagen. HUVECs cultured with the microhole barrier could form well-interconnected tube-like structures and are thus an ideal in vitro angiogenesis model.

High-throughput screening approaches and combinatorial development of biomaterials using microfluidics

From the first microfluidic devices used for analysis of single metabolic by-products to highly complex multicompartmental co-culture organ-on-chip platforms, efforts of many multidisciplinary teams around the world have been invested in overcoming the limitations of conventional research methods in the biomedical field. Close spatial and temporal control over fluids and physical parameters, integration of sensors for direct read-out as well as the possibility to increase throughput of screening through parallelization, multiplexing and automation are some of the advantages of microfluidic over conventional, 2D tissue culture in vitro systems. Moreover, small volumes and relatively small cell numbers used in experimental set-ups involving microfluidics, can potentially decrease research cost. On the other hand, these small volumes and numbers of cells also mean that many of the conventional molecular biology or biochemistry assays cannot be directly applied to experiments that are performed in microfluidic platforms. Development of different types of assays and evidence that such assays are indeed a suitable alternative to conventional ones is a step that needs to be taken in order to have microfluidics-based platforms fully adopted in biomedical research. In this review, rather than providing a comprehensive overview of the literature on microfluidics, we aim to discuss developments in the field of microfluidics that can aid advancement of biomedical research, with emphasis on the field of biomaterials. Three important topics will be discussed, being: screening, in particular high-throughput and combinatorial screening; mimicking of natural microenvironment ranging from 3D hydrogel-based cellular niches to organ-on-chip devices; and production of biomaterials with closely controlled properties. While important technical aspects of various platforms will be discussed, the focus is mainly on their applications, including the state-of-the-art, future perspectives and challenges.

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

Microfluidics, being a technology characterized by the engineered manipulation of fluids at the submillimeter scale, offers some interesting tools that can advance biomedical research and development. Screening platforms based on microfluidic technologies that allow high-throughput and combinatorial screening may lead to breakthrough discoveries not only in basic research but also relevant to clinical application. This is further strengthened by the fact that reliability of such screens may improve, since microfluidic systems allow close mimicking of physiological conditions. Finally, microfluidic systems are also very promising as micro factories of a new generation of natural or synthetic biomaterials and constructs, with finely controlled properties.

Simultaneous or Sequential Orthogonal Gradient Formation in a 3D Cell Culture Microfluidic Platform

Biochemical gradients are ubiquitous in biology. At the tissue level, they dictate differentiation patterning or cell migration. Recapitulating in vitro the complexity of such concentration profiles with great spatial and dynamic control is crucial in order to understand the underlying mechanisms of biological phenomena. Here, a microfluidic design capable of generating diffusion-driven, simultaneous or sequential, orthogonal linear concentration gradients in a 3D cell-embedded scaffold is described. Formation and stability of the orthogonal gradients are demonstrated by computational and fluorescent dextran-based characterizations. Then, system utility is explored in two biological systems. First, stem cells are subjected to orthogonal gradients of morphogens in order to mimic the localized differentiation of motor neurons in the neural tube. Similarly to in vivo, motor neurons preferentially differentiate in regions of high concentration of retinoic acid and smoothened agonist (acting as sonic hedgehog), in a concentration-dependent fashion. Then, a rotating gradient is applied to HT1080 cancer cells and the change in migration direction is investigated as the cells adapt to a new chemical environment. The response time of ≈4 h is reported. These two examples demonstrate the versatility of this new design that can also prove useful in many applications including tissue engineering and drug screening.