An osmotic micro-pump integrated on a microfluidic chip for perfusion cell culture.
A novel microfluidic chip integrating an osmosis-based micro-pump was developed and used for perfusion cell culture. The micro-pump includes two sealed chambers, i.e., the inner osmotic reagent chamber and the outer water chamber, sandwiching a semi-permeable membrane. The water in the outer chamber was forced to flow through the membrane into the inner chamber via osmosis, facilitating continuous flow of fluidic zone in the channel. An average flow rate of 0.33microLmin(-1) was obtained within 50h along with a precision of 4.3% RSD (n=51) by using a 100mgmL(-1) polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) solution as the osmotic driving reagent and a flow passage area of 0.98cm(2) of the semi-permeable membrane. The power-free micro-pump has been demonstrated to be pulse-free offering stable flow rates during long-term operation. The present microfluidic chip has been successfully applied for the perfusion culture of human colorectal carcinoma cell by continuously refreshing the culture medium with the osmotic micro-pump. In addition, in situ cell immunostaining was also performed on the microchip by driving all the reagent zones with the integrated micro-pump.
Xu
Zhang-Run
ZR
Research Center for Analytical Sciences, Box 332, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110004, China.
Yang
Chun-Guang
CG
Liu
Cui-Hong
CH
Zhou
Zhe
Z
Fang
Jin
J
Wang
Jian-Hua
JH
D018929:Cell Culture Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D003470:Culture Media; D004867:Equipment Design; D005455:Fluorescent Antibody Technique; D006801:Humans; D007260:Infusion Pumps; D007700:Kinetics; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D009995:Osmosis; D013194:Staining and Labeling; D018511:Systems Integration
D003470:Culture Media