Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung 82445, Taiwan.
Sensors (Basel). 2011;11(9):8395-411. doi: 10.3390/s110908395. Epub 2011 Aug 29.
This study reports an integrated microfluidic perfusion cell culture system consisting of a microfluidic cell culture chip, and an indium tin oxide (ITO) glass-based microheater chip for micro-scale perfusion cell culture, and its real-time microscopic observation. The system features in maintaining both uniform, and stable chemical or thermal environments, and providing a backflow-free medium pumping, and a precise thermal control functions. In this work, the performance of the medium pumping scheme, and the ITO glass microheater were experimentally evaluated. Results show that the medium delivery mechanism was able to provide pumping rates ranging from 15.4 to 120.0 μL·min(-1). In addition, numerical simulation and experimental evaluation were conducted to verify that the ITO glass microheater was capable of providing a spatially uniform thermal environment, and precise temperature control with a mild variation of ±0.3 °C. Furthermore, a perfusion cell culture was successfully demonstrated, showing the cultured cells were kept at high cell viability of 95 ± 2%. In the process, the cultured chondrocytes can be clearly visualized microscopically. As a whole, the proposed cell culture system has paved an alternative route to carry out real-time microscopic observation of biological cells in a simple, user-friendly, and low cost manner.
本研究报告了一种集成的微流控灌注细胞培养系统，该系统由微流控细胞培养芯片和基于铟锡氧化物（ITO）玻璃的微加热器芯片组成，用于微尺度灌注细胞培养及其实时微观观察。该系统的特点是能够维持均匀、稳定的化学或热环境，并提供无回流的介质泵送和精确的热控制功能。在这项工作中，对介质泵送方案和 ITO 玻璃微加热器的性能进行了实验评估。结果表明，该介质输送机制能够提供 15.4 至 120.0 μL·min(-1) 的泵送速率。此外，还进行了数值模拟和实验评估，以验证 ITO 玻璃微加热器能够提供空间均匀的热环境和精确的温度控制，温度变化幅度仅为±0.3°C。此外，成功地进行了灌注细胞培养，显示培养的细胞保持了 95±2%的高细胞活力。在此过程中，可以通过显微镜清楚地观察到培养的软骨细胞。总的来说，所提出的细胞培养系统为以简单、用户友好和低成本的方式实时观察生物细胞开辟了一条替代途径。
