title: Analysis of intercellular calcium signaling using microfluidic adjustable laminar flow for localized chemical stimulation.
abstract: The propagation of intercellular calcium signals provides a mechanism to coordinate cell population activity, which is essential for regulating cell behavior and organ development. However, existing analytical methods are difficult to realize localized chemical stimulation of a single cell among a population of cells that are in close contact with one another for studying the propagation of calcium wave. In this work, a microfluidic method is presented for the analysis of contact-dependent propagation of intercellular calcium wave induced by extracellular ATP using multiple laminar flows. Adjacent cells were seeded ∼300 μm downstream the intersection of a Y-shaped microchannel with negative pressure pulses. Consequently, the lateral diffusion distance of the chemical at cell locations was limited to ∼26 μm with a total flow rate of 20 μL min(-1), which prevented the interference of diffusion-induced cellular responses. Localized stimulation of the target cell with ATP induced the propagation of intercellular calcium wave among the cell population. In addition, studies on the spread of intercellular calcium wave under octanol inhibition allowed us to characterize the gap junction mediated cell-cell communication. Thus, this novel device will provide a versatile platform for intercellular signal transduction studies and high throughput drug screening.
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Hubei Bioinformatics, Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Xiaojun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Bi-Feng
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate / Q000494:pharmacology; D000818:Animals; D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism*; D020013:Calcium Signaling; D002450:Cell Communication / Q000187:drug effects; D017630:Connexins / Q000378:metabolism; D004058:Diffusion; D017629:Gap Junctions / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques; D041681:NIH 3T3 Cells; D013268:Stimulation, Chemical
chemical_list: D017630:Connexins; D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate; D002118:Calcium