title: Microfluidic system for studying the interaction of nanoparticles and microparticles with cells.
abstract: Nanoparticles and microparticles have many potential biomedical applications ranging from imaging to drug delivery. Therefore, in vitro systems that can analyze and optimize the interaction of such particles with cells may be beneficial. Here, we report a microfluidic system that can be used to study these interactions. As a model system, we evaluated the interaction of polymeric nanoparticles and microparticles and similar particles conjugated to aptamers that recognize the transmembrane prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA), with cells seeded in microchannels. The binding of particles to cells that expressed or did not express the PSMA (LNCaP or PC3, respectively) were evaluated with respect to changes in fluid shear stress, PSMA expression on target cells, and particle size. Nanoparticle-aptamer bioconjugates selectively adhered to LNCaP but not PC3 cells at static and low shear (<1 dyn/cm2) but not higher shear (approximately 4.5 dyn/cm2) conditions. Control nanoparticles and microparticles lacking aptamers and microparticle-aptamer bioconjugates did not adhere to LNCaP cells, even under very low shear conditions (approximately 0.28 dyn/cm2). These results demonstrate that the interaction of particles with cells can be studied under controlled conditions, which may aid in the engineering of desired particle characteristics. The scalability, low cost, reproducibility, and high-throughput capability of this technology is potentially beneficial to examining and optimizing a wide array of cell-particle systems prior to in vivo experiments.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ofarokhzad@partners.org
authors.forename: Omid C
authors.initials: OC
authors.lastname: Farokhzad
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khademhosseini
authors.forename: Sangyong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jon
authors.forename: Aurelia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hermmann
authors.forename: Jianjun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Curtis
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chin
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kiselyuk
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Teply
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Eng
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Langer
mesh_terms: D015374:Biosensing Techniques; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D006801:Humans; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*