A pumpless cell culture chip with the constant medium perfusion-rate maintained by balanced droplet dispensing

作者：Kim Taeyoon; Cho Young Ho^*

来源：Lab on a Chip, 2011, 11(10): 1825-1830.

DOI：10.1039/c1lc20234k

This paper presents a pumpless cell culture chip, where a constant-rate medium perfusion is achieved by balanced droplet dispensing. Previous pumpless cell culture chips, where the gravity-driven flow is induced by gradually decreasing the hydraulic-head difference, Delta h, between source and drain reservoirs, result in a decreasing perfusion-rate. However, the present pumpless cell culture chip, where autonomous droplet dispensers are integrated on the source reservoirs, results in a constant perfusion-rate using a constant Dh maintained by balanced droplet dispensing between the source-inlet and the drain-outlet. In the experimental study, constant perfusion-rates of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 mu l min(-1) are obtained by Delta h of 38, 76, and 114 mm, respectively. At the constant perfusion-rate (Q = 0.2 mu l min(-1)), H358 lung cancer cells show the maximum growth-rate of 57.8 +/- 21.1% d(-1), which is 1.9 times higher than the 30.2 +/- 10.3% d(-1) of the static culture. At a perfusion-rate varying between 0.1-0.3 mu l min(-1) (average = 0.2 mu l min(-1)), however, the H358 cells show a growth-rate of 46.9 +/- 8.3% d(-1), which is lower than that of the constant Q of 0.2 mu l min(-1). The constant-rate perfusion culture (Q = 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 mu l min(-1)) also results in an average cell viability of 89.2%, which is higher than 75.9% of the static culture. This pumpless cell culture chip offers a favorable environment to cells with a high growth-rate and viability, thus having potential for use in cell-based bio-assays.

• 出版日期2011