Suspended microfluidics
Suspended microfluidics
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1302566110
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发表时间：
2013-06-18
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Beebe, David J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Casavant, Benjamin P.;Berthier, Erwin;Beebe, David J.
虽然微流体领域在带来新工具来解决生物学问题方面取得了重大进展，但微流体在生命科学中的可访问性和采用仍然有限。开放的微流体系统有可能降低采用的障碍，但缺乏强大的设计规则阻碍了它们的使用。在这里，我们提出了一个开放的微流体平台，悬浮微流体，它使用表面张力来填充和保持没有天花板和地板的微尺度结构中的流体。我们开发了一个简单而普遍的模型预测悬浮微流体系统中的流体流动，并表明它包括许多已知的毛细现象。悬浮微流体用于在分离两个流体室的水平面中产生胶原蛋白膜的阵列，mico Dots（mu Dots），证明transwell平台能够辨别集体或个体细胞侵入。此外，我们证明了mu Dots也可以用作简单的多重3D细胞生长平台。使用μ Dot阵列，我们探讨了可溶性因子和基质成分的综合作用，发现层粘连蛋白减轻了基质金属蛋白酶抑制剂GM6001的生长抑制特性。基于相同的流体原理，我们使用多层双相系统创建了一个悬浮的微流体代谢物提取平台，该平台利用开放微通道的可访问性从细胞培养物中容易地提取类固醇和其他代谢物。悬浮式微流体将封闭式微流体的高度流体控制和独特功能带入开放式微流体的高度可访问和强大的平台。
Although the field of microfluidics has made significant progress in bringing new tools to address biological questions, the accessibility and adoption of microfluidics within the life sciences are still limited. Open microfluidic systems have the potential to lower the barriers to adoption, but the absence of robust design rules has hindered their use. Here, we present an open microfluidic platform, suspended microfluidics, that uses surface tension to fill and maintain a fluid in microscale structures devoid of a ceiling and floor. We developed a simple and ubiquitous model predicting fluid flow in suspended microfluidic systems and show that it encompasses many known capillary phenomena. Suspended microfluidics was used to create arrays of collagen membranes, mico Dots (mu Dots), in a horizontal plane separating two fluidic chambers, demonstrating a transwell platform able to discern collective or individual cellular invasion. Further, we demonstrated that mu Dots can also be used as a simple multiplexed 3D cellular growth platform. Using the mu Dot array, we probed the combined effects of soluble factors and matrix components, finding that laminin mitigates the growth suppression properties of the matrix metalloproteinase inhibitor GM6001. Based on the same fluidic principles, we created a suspended microfluidic metabolite extraction platform using a multilayer biphasic system that leverages the accessibility of open microchannels to retrieve steroids and other metabolites readily from cell culture. Suspended microfluidics brings the high degree of fluidic control and unique functionality of closed microfluidics into the highly accessible and robust platform of open microfluidics.