Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Biomed Microdevices. 2010 Jun;12(3):389-98. doi: 10.1007/s10544-010-9395-4.
This study reports a transparent indium tin oxide (ITO)-based microheater chip and its applicability for perfusion cell culture outside a cell incubator. The attempt of the proposed ITO microheater is to take the role of conventional bulky incubator for cell culture in order to improve integratability with the experimental setup for continuous/perfusion cell culture, to facilitate microscopic observation or other online monitoring activities during cell culture, or even to provide portability of cell culture operation. In this work, numerical simulation and experimental evaluation have been conducted to justify that the presented device is capable of providing a spatially uniform thermal environment and precise temperature control with a mild deviation of +/-0.2 degrees C, which is suitable for a general cell culture practice. Besides, to testify that the thermal environment generated by the presented device is well compatible with conventional cell incubator, chondrocyte perfusion culture was carried out. Results demonstrated that the physiology of the cultured chondrocytes on the developed ITO microheater chip was consistent with that of an incubator. All these not only demonstrate the feasibility of using the presented ITO microheater as a thermal control system for cell culture outside a cell incubator but also reveal its potential for other applications in which excellent thermal control is required.
本研究报告了一种基于铟锡氧化物（ITO）的透明微加热器芯片及其在细胞培养箱外进行灌注细胞培养的适用性。所提出的 ITO 微加热器的尝试是为了取代传统的大型细胞培养箱，以提高与连续/灌注细胞培养的实验装置的集成度，便于在细胞培养过程中进行微观观察或其他在线监测活动，甚至提供细胞培养操作的便携性。在这项工作中，进行了数值模拟和实验评估，以证明所提出的装置能够提供空间均匀的热环境和精确的温度控制，偏差在 +/-0.2 摄氏度以内，适用于一般的细胞培养实践。此外，为了验证所提出的装置产生的热环境与传统细胞培养箱兼容，进行了软骨细胞灌注培养。结果表明，在开发的 ITO 微加热器芯片上培养的软骨细胞的生理学与培养箱中的一致。所有这些不仅证明了使用所提出的 ITO 微加热器作为细胞培养箱外的细胞温度控制系统的可行性，而且还揭示了其在需要出色温度控制的其他应用中的潜力。
