TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of a hybrid polymer-based microfluidic platform for culturing hepatocytes towards liver-on-a-chip applications
AU - Kulsharova, Gulsim
AU - Kurmangaliyeva, Akbota
AU - Darbayeva, Elvira
AU - Rojas-Solórzano, Luis
AU - Toxeitova, Galiya
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/10/1
Y1 - 2021/10/1
N2 - The drug development process can greatly benefit from liver-on-a-chip platforms aiming to recapitulate the physiology, mechanisms, and functionalities of liver cells in an in vitro environ-ment. The liver is the most important organ in drug metabolism investigation. Here, we report the development of a hybrid cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mi-crofluidic (HCP) platform to culture a Huh7 hepatoma cell line in dynamic conditions towards the development of a liver-on-a-chip system. The microfluidic platform is comprised of a COC bottom layer with a microchannel and PDMS-based flat top layer sandwiched together. The HCP device was applied for culturing Huh7 cells grown on a collagen-coated microchannel. A computational fluid dynamics modeling study was conducted for the HCP device design revealing the presence of air volume fraction in the chamber and methods for optimizing experimental handling of the device. The functionality and metabolic activity of perfusion culture were assessed by the secretion rates of albumin, urea, and cell viability visualization. The HCP device hepatic culture remained functional and intact for 24 h, as assessed by resulting levels of biomarkers similar to published studies on other in vitro and 2D cell models. The present results provide a proof-of-concept demonstration of the hybrid COC–PDMS microfluidic chip for successfully culturing a Huh7 hepatoma cell line, thus paving the path towards developing a liver-on-a-chip platform.
AB - The drug development process can greatly benefit from liver-on-a-chip platforms aiming to recapitulate the physiology, mechanisms, and functionalities of liver cells in an in vitro environ-ment. The liver is the most important organ in drug metabolism investigation. Here, we report the development of a hybrid cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mi-crofluidic (HCP) platform to culture a Huh7 hepatoma cell line in dynamic conditions towards the development of a liver-on-a-chip system. The microfluidic platform is comprised of a COC bottom layer with a microchannel and PDMS-based flat top layer sandwiched together. The HCP device was applied for culturing Huh7 cells grown on a collagen-coated microchannel. A computational fluid dynamics modeling study was conducted for the HCP device design revealing the presence of air volume fraction in the chamber and methods for optimizing experimental handling of the device. The functionality and metabolic activity of perfusion culture were assessed by the secretion rates of albumin, urea, and cell viability visualization. The HCP device hepatic culture remained functional and intact for 24 h, as assessed by resulting levels of biomarkers similar to published studies on other in vitro and 2D cell models. The present results provide a proof-of-concept demonstration of the hybrid COC–PDMS microfluidic chip for successfully culturing a Huh7 hepatoma cell line, thus paving the path towards developing a liver-on-a-chip platform.
KW - Cyclic olefin copolymer
KW - Hepatocytes
KW - Huh7
KW - Hybrid polymer-based liver-on-a-chip
KW - Liver-on-a-chip
KW - Microfluidic chip
KW - Microfluidics
KW - Microphysiological platform
KW - Polydimethylsiloxane
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U2 - 10.3390/polym13193215
DO - 10.3390/polym13193215
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85115773380
SN - 2073-4360
VL - 13
JO - Polymers
JF - Polymers
IS - 19
M1 - 3215
ER -