Comparison of Serial and Parallelized Microfluidic Structures Mimicking Hepatic Cords and Liver Sinusoids on a Chip
Manon Boul,
PhD student,
ENS Paris Saclay
Two distinct microfluidic architectures reproducing a multiplicity of hepatic cords displayed on a single chip are investigated and compared. Both designs consist of an assembly of structural units that creates either a serial or a parallelized structure. One unit consists of a cell chamber loaded with human hepatocytes separated from an endothelized channel by an array of slits, mimicking a hepatic cord, a liver sinusoid, and the space of Disse, respectively. In the serial design a gradient of pressure is intrinsically induced, hence the possibility to generate an increasing range of oxygen, nutrient or chemical concentrations, or cell densities, as will be shown in the paper. On the contrary, pressure distribution in the parallelized device is homogeneous, and the direction of the medium flow is identical on both sides of hepatic cords, thus better mimicking the liver lobule structure. Both devices were characterized by simulating the flow within channels, all sort of gradients (O2, glucose, metabolites, drugs…) in cell chambers and the shear stress to which cells were exposed. Experimental results with optimized conditions for the co-culture of hepatocytes and endothelial cells are presented.
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