Tahk Dongha, Bang Seokyoung, Hyung Sujin, Lim Jungeun, Yu James, Kim Jinhyun, Jeon Noo Li, Kim Hong Nam
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea.
Brain Science Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul 02792, Republic of Korea.
Lab Chip. 2020 Nov 10;20(22):4215-4224. doi: 10.1039/d0lc00604a.
This study presents an ultraviolet (UV)-curable polymer which is applicable to open-access microfluidic platforms. The UV-curable polymer was prepared by mixing trimethylolpropane triacrylate (TMPTA), 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate (HDDA), polyethylene glycol-diacrylate (PEG-DA), and Irgacure 184. The polymer resin is optically transparent before and after UV-assisted curing and showed good biocompatibility when culturing multiple types of cells on the nanopatterned polymer substrate. The polymer has good adhesion with poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) even under large deformation and showed a low swelling ratio when exposed to water, suggesting a possibility to be used as a substrate for an organ on a chip. Furthermore, because the polymers have controllable hydrolysis ability depending on the composition, long-term 3D cell culture and subsequent biological analysis with harvested cells are possible. The self-detachable synthesized UV-curable polymer may help the advancement of biomedical studies using in vitro cell culture.
