An on-chip microfluidic pressure regulator that facilitates reproducible loading of cells and hydrogels into microphysiological system platforms.
An on-chip microfluidic pressure regulator that facilitates reproducible loading of cells and hydrogels into microphysiological system platforms.
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DOI：
10.1039/c5lc01563d
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发表时间：
2016-03-07
期刊：
影响因子：
6.1
通讯作者：
Lee AP
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Wang X;Phan DTT;Zhao D;George SC;Hughes CCW;Lee AP
在 3 维 (3D) 培养物中共培养多种细胞类型可以更好地模拟体内微生理环境，并且近年来随着器官芯片系统的发展而被广泛采用。然而，由于将凝胶输送到对压力波动敏感的微流控芯片中，这些设备的设置出现了瓶颈，这使得将凝胶限制在特定区域具有挑战性，特别是在进行手动操作时。在本文中，我们提出了一种带有压力释放安全微阀的片上调节器模块的新颖设计，该模块可以促进稳定的凝胶输送到指定的微通道区域，同时保持良好控制的非破裂凝胶界面。这种压力调节器设计可以集成到不同的微流控芯片设计中，并且与以不同流速自动或手动操作的各种凝胶注射装置兼容。该压力调节器的灵敏度和工作范围可以通过改变其压力释放安全微型阀设计的宽度来调节。该设计的有效性通过将其纳入我们开发的用于生成 3D 血管化微器官 (VMO) 的微流体平台来验证。演示了自动注射泵和手动微量移液器的可重复凝胶加载。这种设计允许将水凝胶快速且可重复地加载到微流体装置中，而不存在凝胶-空气界面破裂的风险。
Coculturing multiple cell types together in 3-dimensional (3D) cultures better mimics the in vivo microphysiological environment, and has become widely adopted in recent years with the development of organ-on-chip systems. However, a bottleneck in set-up of these devices arises as a result of the delivery of the gel into the microfluidic chip being sensitive to pressure fluctuations, making gel confinement at a specific region challenging, especially when manual operation is performed. In this paper, we present a novel design of an on-chip regulator module with pressure-releasing safety microvalves that can facilitate stable gel delivery into designated microchannel regions while maintaining well-controlled, non-bursting gel interfaces. This pressure regulator design can be integrated into different microfluidic chip designs and is compatible with a wide variety of gel injection apparatuses operated automatically or manually at different flow rates. The sensitivity and working range of this pressure regulator can be adjusted by changing the width of its pressure releasing safety microvalve design. The effectiveness of the design is validated by its incorporation into a microfluidic platform we have developed for generating 3D vascularized micro-organs (VMOs). Reproducible gel loading is demonstrated for both an automatic syringe pump and a manually-operated micropipettor. This design allows for rapid and reproducible loading of hydrogels into microfluidic devices without the risk of bursting gel-air interfaces.