Biomedical Engineering Department, McGill University, 740, Dr. Penfield Ave, Montreal, Quebec H3A1A4, Canada.
Lab Chip. 2010 Feb 7;10(3):326-34. doi: 10.1039/b916669f. Epub 2009 Nov 19.
Microfluidic systems are increasingly being used for the culture and study of dissociated cells because they require only minute amounts of materials while enabling drug screening and chemotaxis studies down to the single cell level. However, the culture of organized tissue, such as brain slices, has been more difficult to adapt to microfluidic devices. Here, we present a microfluidic system, comprising (i) a perfusion chamber for the culture of organotypic slices that is compatible with high resolution imaging on inverted microscopes, and (ii) a novel transparent microfluidic probe (MFP) for the localized microperfusion of the brain tissue. The MFP is made in poly(dimethylsiloxane), features six micrometre-scale apertures and can be assembled within a few hours in a standard laboratory. Each aperture can indiscriminately be used either for the injection or aspiration of solutions, giving rise to many possible combinations. The MFP was successfully used for the perfusion of a small number of cells in a brain slice with concurrent confocal fluorescence imaging of the perfused dye and sub-cellular structures within the tissue.
微流控系统越来越多地被用于分离细胞的培养和研究，因为它们只需要少量的材料，同时能够在单细胞水平上进行药物筛选和趋化性研究。然而，组织的培养，如脑片，更难以适应微流控设备。在这里，我们提出了一种微流控系统，包括（i）用于器官型切片培养的灌注室，该灌注室与倒置显微镜上的高分辨率成像兼容，和（ii）一种新颖的透明微流控探头（MFP），用于脑组织的局部微灌注。MFP 由聚二甲基硅氧烷制成，具有 6 微米尺度的孔，并可以在标准实验室中在几个小时内组装。每个孔都可以不分青红皂白地用于注射或抽吸溶液，从而产生许多可能的组合。MFP 成功地用于在脑片中对少量细胞进行灌注，同时对灌注染料和组织内的亚细胞结构进行共聚焦荧光成像。
