Agarwal Shashwat S, Holter Jacob C, Jones Travis H, Fuller Brendan T, Tinapple Joseph W, Barlage Joseph M, Song Jonathan W
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Micromachines (Basel). 2025 Mar 19;16(3):351. doi: 10.3390/mi16030351.
Continuous perfusion is necessary to sustain microphysiological systems and other microfluidic cell cultures. However, most of the established microfluidic perfusion systems, such as syringe pumps, peristaltic pumps, and rocker plates, have several operational challenges and may be cost-prohibitive, especially for laboratories with no microsystems engineering expertise. Here, we address the need for a cost-efficient, easy-to-implement, and reliable microfluidic perfusion system. Our solution is a modular pumpless perfusion assembly (PPA), which is constructed from commercially available, interchangeable, and aseptically packaged syringes and syringe filters. The total cost for the components of each assembled PPA is USD 1-2. The PPA retains the simplicity of gravity-based pumpless flow systems but incorporates high resistance filters that enable slow and sustained flow for extended periods of time (hours to days). The perfusion characteristics of the PPA were determined by theoretical calculations of the total hydraulic resistance of the assembly and experimental characterization of specific filter resistances. We demonstrated that the PPA enabled reliable long-term culture of engineered endothelialized 3-D microvessels for several weeks. Taken together, our novel PPA solution is simply constructed from extremely low-cost and commercially available laboratory supplies and facilitates robust cell culture and compatibility with current microfluidic setups.
持续灌注对于维持微生理系统和其他微流控细胞培养至关重要。然而，大多数已建立的微流控灌注系统，如注射泵、蠕动泵和摇板，存在若干操作挑战，且成本可能过高，尤其是对于没有微系统工程专业知识的实验室而言。在此，我们满足了对一种经济高效、易于实施且可靠的微流控灌注系统的需求。我们的解决方案是一种模块化无泵灌注组件（PPA），它由市售的、可互换的且无菌包装的注射器和注射器过滤器构建而成。每个组装好的PPA组件的总成本为1至2美元。PPA保留了基于重力的无泵流动系统的简单性，但包含高阻力过滤器，能够长时间（数小时至数天）实现缓慢且持续的流动。通过对组件总水力阻力的理论计算和特定过滤器阻力的实验表征，确定了PPA的灌注特性。我们证明，PPA能够可靠地长期培养工程化内皮化三维微血管数周。综上所述，我们新颖的PPA解决方案由成本极低的市售实验室用品简单构建而成，便于进行稳健的细胞培养，并与当前的微流控装置兼容。
