Biomedical Technology, CFD Research Corporation, 215 Wynn Dr., Huntsville, AL 35805, USA.
Microvasc Res. 2011 Nov;82(3):210-20. doi: 10.1016/j.mvr.2011.06.013. Epub 2011 Jul 2.
Cell-fluid and cell-cell interactions are critical components of many physiological and pathological conditions in the microvasculature. Similarly, particle-cell interactions play an important role in targeted delivery of therapeutics to tissue. Development of in vitro fluidic devices to mimic these microcirculatory processes has been a critical step forward in our understanding of the inflammatory process, developing of nano-particulate drug carriers, and developing realistic in vitro models of the microvasculature and its surrounding tissue. However, widely used parallel plate flow based devices and assays have a number of important limitations for studying the physiological conditions in vivo. In addition, these devices are resource hungry and time consuming for performing various assays. Recently developed, more realistic, microfluidic based devices have been able to overcome many of these limitations. In this review, an overview of the fluidic devices and their use in studying the effects of shear forces on cell-cell and cell-particle interactions is presented. In addition, use of mathematical models and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based models for interpreting the complex flow patterns in the microvasculature is highlighted. Finally, the potential of 3D microfluidic devices and imaging for better representing in vivo conditions under which cell-cell and cell-particle interactions take place is discussed.
细胞-流体和细胞-细胞相互作用是微血管中许多生理和病理条件的关键组成部分。同样，颗粒-细胞相互作用在靶向递送到组织的治疗中起着重要作用。开发体外流体设备来模拟这些微循环过程是我们理解炎症过程、开发纳米颗粒药物载体以及开发微血管及其周围组织的现实体外模型的重要一步。然而，基于平行板流动的广泛使用的设备和检测方法在研究体内生理条件方面存在许多重要的局限性。此外，这些设备在进行各种检测时需要大量的资源和时间。最近开发的更现实的基于微流控的设备已经能够克服许多这些局限性。在这篇综述中，介绍了流体设备及其在研究剪切力对细胞-细胞和细胞-颗粒相互作用的影响中的应用。此外，还强调了使用数学模型和基于计算流体动力学 (CFD) 的模型来解释微血管中复杂的流动模式。最后，讨论了 3D 微流控设备和成像在更好地代表细胞-细胞和细胞-颗粒相互作用发生的体内条件方面的潜力。
