Berthier Erwin, Warrick Jay, Yu Hongmeiy, Beebe David J
MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, Dpt of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ.
Lab Chip. 2008 Jun;8(6):860-4. doi: 10.1039/b717423c. Epub 2008 Apr 8.
Cell based microassays allow the screening of a multitude of culture conditions in parallel, which can be used for various applications from drug screening to fundamental cell biology research. Tubeless microfluidic devices based on passive pumping are a step towards accessible high throughput microassays, however they are vulnerable to evaporation. In addition to volume loss, evaporation can lead to the generation of small flows. Here, we focus on issues of convection and diffusion for cell culture in microchannels and particularly the transport of soluble factors secreted by cells. We find that even for humidity levels as high as 95%, convection in a passive pumping channel can significantly alter distributions of these factors and that appropriate system design can prevent convection.
基于细胞的微量分析能够并行筛选多种培养条件，可用于从药物筛选到基础细胞生物学研究等各种应用。基于被动泵送的无管微流控设备是迈向可实现的高通量微量分析的一步，然而它们容易受到蒸发的影响。除了体积损失外，蒸发还会导致小流量的产生。在这里，我们关注微通道中细胞培养的对流和扩散问题，特别是细胞分泌的可溶性因子的运输。我们发现，即使在湿度高达95%的情况下，被动泵送通道中的对流也会显著改变这些因子的分布，而适当的系统设计可以防止对流。
