Berenguel-Alonso Miguel, Sabés-Alsina Maria, Morató Roser, Ymbern Oriol, Rodríguez-Vázquez Laura, Talló-Parra Oriol, Alonso-Chamarro Julián, Puyol Mar, López-Béjar Manel
1 Group of Sensors and Biosensors, Chemistry Department, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
2 Department of Animal Health and Anatomy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
SLAS Technol. 2017 Jan 1:2472630316684625. doi: 10.1177/2472630316684625.
Assisted reproductive technology (ART) can benefit from the features of microfluidic technologies, such as the automation of time-consuming labor-intensive procedures, the possibility to mimic in vivo environments, and the miniaturization of the required equipment. To date, most of the proposed approaches are based on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as platform substrate material due to its widespread use in academia, despite certain disadvantages, such as the elevated cost of mass production. Herein, we present a rapid fabrication process for a cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) monolithic microfluidic device combining hot embossing-using a low-temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) master-and micromilling. The microfluidic device was suitable for trapping and maturation of bovine oocytes, which were further studied to determine their ability to be fertilized. Furthermore, another COC microfluidic device was fabricated to store sperm and assess its quality parameters over time. The study herein presented demonstrates a good biocompatibility of the COC when working with gametes, and it exhibits certain advantages, such as the nonabsorption of small molecules, gas impermeability, and low fabrication costs, all at the prototyping and mass production scale, thus taking a step further toward fully automated microfluidic devices in ART.
辅助生殖技术（ART）可受益于微流控技术的特点，如耗时费力的程序自动化、模拟体内环境的可能性以及所需设备的小型化。迄今为止，由于聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）在学术界的广泛应用，大多数提出的方法都以其作为平台基底材料，尽管存在某些缺点，如大规模生产成本较高。在此，我们展示了一种用于制备环状烯烃共聚物（COC）整体式微流控装置的快速制造工艺，该工艺结合了使用低温共烧陶瓷（LTCC）母版的热压印和微铣削。该微流控装置适用于捕获牛卵母细胞并使其成熟，对其进行了进一步研究以确定其受精能力。此外，还制造了另一种COC微流控装置来储存精子并随时间评估其质量参数。本文提出的研究表明，COC在与配子一起使用时具有良好的生物相容性，并且在原型制作和大规模生产规模上都具有某些优势，如小分子不吸收、气体不渗透性和低制造成本，从而朝着ART中全自动化微流控装置又迈进了一步。
