Dispersible oxygen microsensors map oxygen gradients in three-dimensional cell cultures.

Phase fluorimetry, unlike the more commonly used intensity-based measurement, is not affected by differences in light paths from culture vessels or by optical attenuation through dense 3D cell cultures and hydrogels thereby minimizing dependence on signal intensity for accurate measurements. This work describes the use of phase fluorimetry on oxygen-sensor microbeads to perform oxygen measurements in different microtissue culture environments. In one example, cell spheroids were observed to deplete oxygen from the cell-culture medium filling the bottom of conventional microwells within minutes, whereas oxygen concentrations remained close to ambient levels for several days in hanging-drop cultures. By dispersing multiple oxygen microsensors in cell-laden hydrogels, we also mapped cell-generated oxygen gradients. The spatial oxygen mapping was sufficiently precise to enable the use of computational models of oxygen diffusion and uptake to give estimates of the cellular oxygen uptake rate and the half-saturation constant. The results show the importance of integrated design and analysis of 3D cell cultures from both biomaterial and oxygen supply aspects. While this paper specifically tests spheroids and cell-laden gel cultures, the described methods should be useful for measuring pericellular oxygen concentrations in a variety of biomaterials and culture formats.

Microfluidic device capable of medium recirculation for non-adherent cell culture.

We present a microfluidic device designed for maintenance and culture of non-adherent mammalian cells, which enables both recirculation and refreshing of medium, as well as easy harvesting of cells from the device. We demonstrate fabrication of a novel microfluidic device utilizing Braille perfusion for peristaltic fluid flow to enable switching between recirculation and refresh flow modes. Utilizing fluid flow simulations and the human promyelocytic leukemia cell line, HL-60, non-adherent cells, we demonstrate the utility of this RECIR-REFRESH device. With computer simulations, we profiled fluid flow and concentration gradients of autocrine factors and found that the geometry of the cell culture well plays a key role in cell entrapping and retaining autocrine and soluble factors. We subjected HL-60 cells, in the device, to a treatment regimen of 1.25% dimethylsulfoxide, every other day, to provoke differentiation and measured subsequent expression of CD11b on day 2 and day 4 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) on day 4. Our findings display perfusion sensitive CD11b expression, but not TNF-α build-up, by day 4 of culture, with a 1:1 ratio of recirculation to refresh flow yielding the greatest increase in CD11b levels. RECIR-REFRESH facilitates programmable levels of cell differentiation in a HL-60 non-adherent cell population and can be expanded to other types of non-adherent cells such as hematopoietic stem cells.

Micro-ring structures stabilize microdroplets to enable long term spheroid culture in 384 hanging drop array plates.

Using stereolithography, 20 different structural variations comprised of millimeter diameter holes surrounded by trenches, plateaus, or micro-ring structures were prepared and tested for their ability to stably hold arrays of microliter sized droplets within the structures over an extended period of time. The micro-ring structures were the most effective in stabilizing droplets against mechanical and chemical perturbations. After confirming the importance of micro-ring structures using rapid prototyping, we developed an injection molding tool for mass production of polystyrene 3D cell culture plates with an array of 384 such micro-ring surrounded through-hole structures. These newly designed and injection molded polystyrene 384 hanging drop array plates with micro-rings were stable and robust against mechanical perturbations as well as surface fouling-facilitated droplet spreading making them capable of long term cell spheroid culture of up to 22 days within the droplet array. This is a significant improvement over previously reported 384 hanging drop array plates which are susceptible to small mechanical shocks and could not reliably maintain hanging drops for longer than a few days. With enhanced droplet stability, the hanging drop array plates with micro-ring structures provide better platforms and open up new opportunities for high-throughput preparation of microscale 3D cell constructs for drug screening and cell analysis.

Responses of endothelial cells to extremely slow flows.

The process of blood vessel formation is accompanied by very minimal flow in the beginning, followed by increased flow rates once the vessel develops sufficiently. Many studies have been performed for endothelial cells at shear stress levels of 0.1-60 dyn∕cm(2); however, little is known about the effect of extremely slow flows (shear stress levels of 10(-4)-10(-2) dyn∕cm(2)) that endothelial cells may experience during early blood vessel formation where flow-sensing by indirect mass transport sensing rather than through mechanoreceptor sensing mechanisms would become more important. Here, we show that extremely low flows enhance proliferation, adherens junction protein localization, and nitric oxide secretion of endothelial cells, but do not induce actin filament reorganization. The responses of endothelial cells in different flow microenvironments need more attention because increasing evidence shows that endothelial cell behaviors at the extremely slow flow regimes cannot be linearly extrapolated from observations at faster flow rates. The devices and methods described here provide a useful platform for such studies.

Integrated Elastomeric Components for Autonomous Regulation of Sequential and Oscillatory Flow Switching in Microfluidic Devices.

A critical need for enhancing usability and capabilities of microfluidic technologies is the development of standardized, scalable, and versatile control systems1,2. Electronically controlled valves and pumps typically used for dynamic flow regulation, although useful, can limit convenience, scalability, and robustness3-5. This shortcoming has motivated development of device-embedded non-electrical flow-control systems. Existing approaches to regulate operation timing on-chip, however, still require external signals such as timed generation of fluid flow, bubbles, liquid plugs or droplets, or an alteration of chemical compositions or temperature6-16. Here, we describe a strategy to provide device-embedded flow switching and clocking functions. Physical gaps and cavities interconnected by holes are fabricated into a three-layer elastomer structure to form networks of fluidic gates that can spontaneously generate cascading and oscillatory flow output using only a constant flow of Newtonian fluids as the device input. The resulting microfluidic substrate architecture is simple, scalable, and should be applicable to various materials. This flow-powered fluidic gating scheme brings the autonomous signal processing ability of microelectronic circuits to microfluidics where there is the added diversity in current information of having distinct chemical or particulate species and richness in current operation of having chemical reactions and physical interactions.

Dynamics of liquid plugs of buffer and surfactant solutions in a micro-engineered pulmonary airway model.

We describe a bioinspired microfluidic system that resembles pulmonary airways and enables on-chip generation of airway occluding liquid plugs from a stratified air-liquid two-phase flow. User-defined changes in the air stream pressure facilitated by mechanical components and tuning the wettability of the microchannels enable generation of well-defined liquid plugs. Significant differences are observed in liquid plug generation and propagation when surfactant is added to the buffer. The plug flow patterns suggest a protective role of surfactant for airway epithelial cells against pathological flow-induced mechanical stresses. We discuss the implications of the findings for clinical settings. This approach and the described platform will enable systematic investigation of the effect of different degrees of fluid mechanical stresses on lung injury at the cellular level and administration of exogenous therapeutic surfactants.

External compression-induced fracture patterning on the surface of poly(dimethylsiloxane) cubes and microspheres.

This article describes a method for creating submicrometer surface patterns on cubes and microspheres. In this method, PDMS cubes and microspheres are exposed to oxygen plasma, which creates a very thin, hard, surface-modified layer on a compliant substrate. These are then compressed, causing the layer to crack in patterns dictated by the distribution of tensile stresses in the surface layer. Cracks with submicrometer widths were generated on 1 cm3 cubes and 800-microm-diameter microspheres, and the resulting crack patterns were observed. Finite-element simulations of the tensile stress distributions reveal that the fracture patterns arise from different mechanisms in the cubes and spheres. In particular, pattern formation is associated with frictional contact in the cubes but not in the microspheres, where geometrical effects associated with changes in the cross-sectional area along the axis lead to the generation of tensile stress. These observations and analyses provide a foundation on which to predict and guide crack pattern formation on a wide variety of small 3D objects. In anticipation of future applications in materials science and biology, we demonstrate the selective deposition of compounds into the cracks to make them functionally differentiable from the rest of the surface.