de Graaf Mees N S, Vivas Aisen, van der Meer Andries D, Mummery Christine L, Orlova Valeria V
Department of Anatomy and Embryology, Leiden University Medical Center, Einthovenweg 20, 2333 ZC Leiden, The Netherlands.
Applied Stem Cell Technologies, Technical Medical Centre, University of Twente, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
Micromachines (Basel). 2022 Aug 20;13(8):1359. doi: 10.3390/mi13081359.
Organ-on-chip (OoC) devices are increasingly used to mimic the tissue microenvironment of cells in intact organs. This includes microchannels to mimic, for example, fluidic flow through blood vessels. Present methods for controlling microfluidic flow in these systems rely on gravity, rocker systems or external pressure pumps. For many purposes, pressure pumps give the most consistent flow profiles, but they are not well-suited for high throughput as might be required for testing drug responses. Here, we describe a method which allows for multiplexing of microfluidic channels in OoC devices plus the accompanying custom software necessary to run the system. Moreover, we show the approach is also suitable for recirculation of culture medium, an essential cost consideration when expensive culture reagents are used and are not "spent" through uptake by the cells during transient unidirectional flow.
器官芯片（OoC）设备越来越多地用于模拟完整器官中细胞的组织微环境。这包括微通道，例如用于模拟通过血管的流体流动。目前在这些系统中控制微流体流动的方法依赖于重力、摇杆系统或外部压力泵。对于许多目的而言，压力泵能提供最一致的流动曲线，但它们不太适合高通量应用，例如测试药物反应时可能需要的高通量。在此，我们描述了一种方法，该方法允许对器官芯片设备中的微流体通道进行多路复用，并提供运行该系统所需的配套定制软件。此外，我们表明该方法也适用于培养基的再循环，当使用昂贵的培养试剂且在短暂单向流动过程中不会因细胞摄取而“消耗”时，这是一个重要的成本考量因素。
