Abstract

MPS for Co-culture of 4 Organs with 80 µL of Recirculating Medium

Mandy Esch, Project Leader, NIST

Microphysiological systems (MPS) rely on small amounts of recirculating cell culture medium to distribute drug metabolites among organ chambers. Amounts of 60 µL to 100 µL of cell culture medium represent physiological amounts of blood surrogate for systems that are scaled between 1/100,000 to 1/60,000. Operating a multi organ MPS with amounts of recirculating liquid under 100 µL is technically challenging. At the same time, scaling factors of that magnitude are very suitable for systems that can operate with small numbers of patient-derived cells. Here, we have developed a 3D microphysiological cell culture platform that supports the culture of four human tissues (kidney, GI tract, liver, and bone marrow, scaled 1/73,000) with physiological amounts of blood surrogate (80 µL of cell culture medium). To show the functionality of the platform, we co-culture the tissues for 72 h, and replicated acute liver cell toxicity to HepG2/C3A cells with acetaminophen and troglitazone.