Institute of Biomedical and Health Engineering, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
Biomed Microdevices. 2009 Dec;11(6):1233-7. doi: 10.1007/s10544-009-9342-4.
Conventional in vitro cell culture that utilizes culture dishes or microtiter plates is labor-intensive and time-consuming, and requires technical expertise and specific facilities to handle cell harvesting, media exchange and cell subculturing procedures. A microfluidic array platform with eight microsieves in each cell culture chamber is presented for continuous cell culture. With the help of the microsieves, uniform cell loading and distribution can be obtained. Within the arrays, cells grown to the point of confluency can be trypsinized and recovered from the device. Cells trapped in the microsieves after trypsinization function to seed the chambers for subsequent on-chip culturing, creating a sustainable platform for multiple cycles. The capability of the microfluidic array platform was demonstrated with a BALB/3T3 (murine embryonic fibroblast) cell line. The present microfluidic cell culture platform has potential to develop into a fully automated cell culture system integrated with temperature control, fluidic control, and micropumps, maximizing cell culture health with minimal intervention.
传统的细胞体外培养方法需要使用培养皿或微孔板，这种方法既费时费力，又需要专业技术和特定的设备来处理细胞收获、培养基更换和细胞传代培养等程序。本研究提出了一种具有 8 个微筛的微流控芯片细胞培养平台，用于连续细胞培养。借助微筛，可以实现均匀的细胞加载和分布。在微流控芯片阵列中，当细胞生长到汇合状态时，可以用胰蛋白酶将其从装置中消化下来并回收。消化后的细胞可以被捕获在微筛中，用于接种后续的芯片培养，从而为多个周期提供了一个可持续的平台。本研究以 BALB/3T3（鼠胚胎成纤维细胞）细胞系为例，展示了微流控芯片细胞培养平台的性能。本研究提出的微流控细胞培养平台具有与温度控制、流体控制和微泵集成的潜力，从而实现全自动细胞培养系统，最大程度地减少干预，提高细胞培养健康水平。
