Ho Chen-Ta, Lin Ruei-Zeng, Chang Wen-Yu, Chang Hwan-You, Liu Cheng-Hsien
Department of Power Mechanical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 300, ROC.
Lab Chip. 2006 Jun;6(6):724-34. doi: 10.1039/b602036d. Epub 2006 May 3.
Biomimetic heterogeneous patterning of hepatic and endothelial cells, which start from randomly distributed cells inside the microfluidic chamber, via the chip design of enhanced field-induced dielectrophoresis (DEP) trap is demonstrated and reported in this paper. The concentric-stellate-tip electrode array design in this chip generates radial-pattern electric fields for the DEP manipulation of the live liver cells. By constructing the geometric shape and the distribution of stellate tips, the DEP electrodes enhance the desired spatial electric-field gradients to guide and snare individual cells to form the desired biomimetic pattern. With this proposed microfluidic chip design, the original randomly distributed hepatocytes inside the microfluidic chamber can be manipulated in parallel and align into the desired pearl-chain array pattern. This radial pattern mimics the lobular morphology of real liver tissue. The endothelial cells, then, are snared into the additional pearl-chain array and settle at the space in-between the previous hepatic pearl-chain array. By this cell-lab chip, we demonstrate the in vitro reconstruction of the heterogeneous lobule-mimetic radial pattern with good cell viability after cell patterning. This work reports the rapid in-parallel patterning of the dual types of live liver cells via the enhanced DEP trap inside the microfluidic chip.
本文展示并报道了通过增强场诱导介电泳（DEP）阱的芯片设计，使肝细胞和内皮细胞从微流控腔内随机分布的细胞开始进行仿生异质图案化。该芯片中的同心星状尖端电极阵列设计产生径向图案电场，用于对活肝细胞进行DEP操控。通过构建星状尖端的几何形状和分布，DEP电极增强了所需的空间电场梯度，以引导和捕获单个细胞形成所需的仿生图案。利用这种提出的微流控芯片设计，微流控腔内原本随机分布的肝细胞可以被并行操控，并排列成所需的珍珠链阵列图案。这种径向图案模仿了真实肝组织的小叶形态。然后，内皮细胞被捕获到额外的珍珠链阵列中，并沉积在前一个肝珍珠链阵列之间的空间。通过这种细胞实验室芯片，我们展示了在细胞图案化后具有良好细胞活力的异质小叶模拟径向图案的体外重建。这项工作报道了通过微流控芯片内增强的DEP阱对两种类型的活肝细胞进行快速并行图案化。
