title: Chamber and microfluidic probe for microperfusion of organotypic brain slices.
abstract: Microfluidic systems are increasingly being used for the culture and study of dissociated cells because they require only minute amounts of materials while enabling drug screening and chemotaxis studies down to the single cell level. However, the culture of organized tissue, such as brain slices, has been more difficult to adapt to microfluidic devices. Here, we present a microfluidic system, comprising (i) a perfusion chamber for the culture of organotypic slices that is compatible with high resolution imaging on inverted microscopes, and (ii) a novel transparent microfluidic probe (MFP) for the localized microperfusion of the brain tissue. The MFP is made in poly(dimethylsiloxane), features six micrometre-scale apertures and can be assembled within a few hours in a standard laboratory. Each aperture can indiscriminately be used either for the injection or aspiration of solutions, giving rise to many possible combinations. The MFP was successfully used for the perfusion of a small number of cells in a brain slice with concurrent confocal fluorescence imaging of the perfused dye and sub-cellular structures within the tissue.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Engineering Department, McGill University, 740, Dr. Penfield Ave, Montreal, Quebec H3A1A4, Canada.
authors.forename: Arthur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Queval
authors.forename: Nageswara R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Ghattamaneni
authors.forename: Cécile M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Perrault
authors.forename: Raminder
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gill
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mirzaei
authors.forename: R Anne
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: McKinney
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Juncker
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007260:Infusion Pumps; D051379:Mice; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008904:Miniaturization; D009924:Organ Culture Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014159:Transducers