title: Thermomodulated cell culture∕harvest in polydimethylsiloxane microchannels with poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-grafted surface.
abstract: Cell culture and harvest are the most upstream operation for a completely integrated cell assay chip. In our previous work, thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) was successfully grafted onto polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface via benzophenone-initiated photopolymerization. In the present work, the PNIPAAm-grafted-PDMS (PNIPAAm-g-PDMS) surface was explored for thermomodulated cell culture and noninvasive harvest in microfluidic channels. Using COS 7 fibroblast from African green monkey kidney as the model cells, the thermomodulated adhering and detaching behaviors of the cells on the PNIPAAm-g-PDMS surfaces were optimized with respect to PNIPAAm-grafting yields and gelatin modification. The viability of the cells cultured on and harvested from the PNIPAAm-g-PDMS surface with the thermomodulated noninvasive protocol was estimated against the traditional cell culture∕harvest method involving trypsin digestion. The configuration of the microchannel on the PNIPAAm-g-PDMS chip was evaluated for static cell culture. Using a pipette-shaped PNIPAAm-g-PDMS microchannel, long-term cell culture could be achieved at 37 °C with periodic change of the culture medium every 12 h. After moving the microchip from the incubator set at 37 °C to the room temperature, the proliferated cells could be spontaneously detached from the PNIPAAm-g-PDMS surface of the upstream chamber and transferred by a gentle fluid flow to the downstream chamber, wherein the transferred cells could be subcultured. The thermomodulated cell culture, harvest, and passage operations on the PNIPAAm-g-PDMS microfluidic channels were demonstrated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, The Institute of Micro-analytical Systems, Zhejiang University, Zijin'gang Campus, Hangzhou 310058, China.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Hengwu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Zhiming
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Qiaohong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: He