Abstract

A Benchtop Microfluidic Platform for Culturing Tissue with Live Imaging Under Physiological Flow Conditions

Thomas Corso, Chief Technical Officer, CorSolutions

To date, tissue culture with live imaging under physiological flow conditions is challenging.  To address these difficulties CorSolutions has developed a Benchtop Microfluidic Culture Platform for studying tissue culture under physiologically relevant conditions outside of an incubator.  This flexible, universal platform incorporates fluidic interconnects, pulse-free fluid delivery pumps, and optics to offer a simple alternative to the conventional incubator.  The Benchtop Microfluidic Culture Platform can interface a variety of microfluidic devices to the macro world.  To evaluate the platform, perfused microvessels consisting of human umbilical cord vascular endothelial cells, expressing green fluorescent protein, were cultured.  The approach allowed for live cell imaging while subjecting the culture to the physiological shear stress of 15 dynes/cm2, throughout the 3 day experiment.  The results showed an unexpected active migration of cells both with and against the flow, including traversal of the branching channels, and their eventual alignment and polarization in the direction of flow.  The live imaging revealed cell behavior that had never before been observed as endothelial cells had been believed to be quiescent, undergoing mitosis only once every one to two years.  Although the implications of the observed cell migrations are not yet known, it is clear that the Benchtop Microfluidic Culture Platform is a tool with tremendous potential for probing cellular behavior.