Video: Wound healing assay in microfluidic device
Microfluidics is widely used to develop tools for cell biology. The micrometer scale of microfluidic devices is particularly adapted to work with cells, and miniaturization of the systems allow to easily implement high throughput assays. Moreover, the fluid properties at this scale help to create stable concentrations of gradients, and to precisely control fluid composition and temperature.
Recent developments of microfluidics have led to a better control of the cells’ micro-environment, enabling innovative cell biology research.
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ALL Microfluidics cell culture Application Notes
ALL Microfluidics for cell biology REVIEWS
Parallelization of experiments. The reduced size of microfluidic devices allows to create high throughput experiments and collect more data than with regular assays.
Cell culture medium renewal. The renewal of cell culture medium can be precisely controlled and automated.
Spatial control over fluid composition. Fluids have a laminar behavior at the micrometer scale, allowing to create gradients.
Control of temperature and gas. The small volumes used in microfluidics allow dynamic control over temperature and dissolved gas.
Control of the cells’ substrate. Thanks to micro-patterning methods, the cells’ substrate parameters can be controlled.
Compatibility with live cell imaging. Microfluidics allows to perform numerous tasks, such as drug exposure, while imaging the cellular response.
Single cell manipulation and analysis. Microfluidics allows to perform single cell manipulation in a very accurate way.
These advantages led to an increasing number of research groups using microfluidic technologies to push forward their cell biology research, as shown by the large and still increasing number of publications about microfluidics and cell biology.
Number of publications per year with the words “microfluidic” and “biology”
Source: Google Scholar
Taking advantage of the precise control of microenvironment provided by microfluidics, the research community has developed numerous microfluidic devices dedicated to cell proliferation. Contrary to conventionnal cell culture, microfluidics offers the possibility to mimic in vivo micro-environments while working at a high throughput.
The small dimensions of microfluidic devices ensure laminar flows even at high velocity. Very simple microfluidic chips designs can be used for this application, such as straight channels with defined height and width. Moreover, this method allows to apply flow patterns (such as oscillatory flows) to mimic some in vivo conditions. If you want to calculate shear stress, you can find a microfluidics-adapted shear stress calculator at Darwin Microfluidics.
Microfluidics enhances conventional cell migration assays in two distinct ways. The first one is the possibility to create a stable concentration gradient at a cellular length scale, the second one is the possibility to use microfluidics for live cell imaging to quantify cellular response.
Microfluidics is a widely used tool to investigate the effect of cell deformation. Different techniques are possible: confining cells in small channels, applying a mechanical pressure on the cells thanks to deformable channels or applying shear stress using laminar flow.
Cells can easily be encapsulted in water-in-oil droplets, creating discrete micro-reactors. This allows to study cellular behavior at a single cell level, rather than a population average.
Organs on chips are microengineered biomimetic systems that replicate key functions of living organs. These microdevices provide a more accurate model than conventional cell culture for simulating complex cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions.
You will find hereafter a short list of microfluidic publications about cell biology. If you wish to add a specific publication to this list, please contact us!
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Do you want tips on how to best set up your microfluidic experiment? Do you need inspiration or a different angle to take on your specific problem? Well, we probably have an application note just for you, feel free to check them out!
Biofilm testing using a simple microfluidic chip channel for in situ observation of their development under flow conditions.
Microfluidics for microscopy imaging in plant biology allows to observe, in vivo, the biological response of plant roots to various stimuli.
This application note describes how co-culture of different cell types in separate but interconnected chambers is possible in a microfluidic platform
This application note explains how to study bacteria adaptation to stress and environmental changes such as antibiotics.
In this application note we describe how to set up medium recirculation by using microfluidic valves
In this application note we describe how to create a medium recirculation for dynamic cell culture with a microfluidic setup.
In this application note we describe how to stain cells for dynamic cell culture with different microfluidic setups.
In this application note we describe how to do cell perfusion for dynamic cell culture and a way to enable uni-directional recirculation of medium.
A simple guide to do dynamic cell culture by automating cell seeding in a microlfuidic chip
This application note proposes a microfluidic cardiac cell culture model (μCCCM) to recreate mechanical loading conditions observed in the native heart (in both normal and pathological conditions) by using an Elveflow OB1 pressure and flow controller.
In this application note, we will describe how to perform an automated and fast medium switch thanks to the Perfusion Pack.
Medium switch is widely used in cell biology. One application is the study of cell behavior under given flow conditions for different samples. In this tutorial, we walk you through the steps of a fast and stable medium switch using IBIDI© flow cells.
Fluorescence reader for microfluidic qPCR: faster, more sensitive and less expensive than most optical microscopes, it is a smart alternative for real-time fluorescence measurements of your on-chip qPCR signal.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death for men. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are considered as a marker of early cancer diagnosis and disease severity. Their screening in blood is thus crucial to detect metastatic stage in cancer patients.
Until recently, microfluidic devices have been employed to support tissue-engineering experiments on basal lamina, vascular tissue, liver, bone, cartilage and neurons as well as organ-on-chips.
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