title: Low-cost microcontroller platform for studying lymphatic biomechanics in vitro.
abstract: The pumping innate to collecting lymphatic vessels routinely exposes the endothelium to oscillatory wall shear stress and other dynamic forces. However, studying the mechanical sensitivity of the lymphatic endothelium remains a difficult task due to limitations of commercial or custom systems to apply a variety of time-varying stresses in vitro. Current biomechanical in vitro testing devices are very expensive, limited in capability, or highly complex; rendering them largely inaccessible to the endothelial cell biology community. To address these shortcomings, the authors propose a reliable, low-cost platform for augmenting the capabilities of commercially available pumps to produce a wide variety of flow rate waveforms. In particular, the Arduino Uno, a microcontroller development board, is used to provide open-loop control of a digital peristaltic pump using precisely timed serial commands. In addition, the flexibility of this platform is further demonstrated through its support of a custom-built cell-straining device capable of producing oscillatory strains with varying amplitudes and frequencies. Hence, this microcontroller development board is shown to be an inexpensive, precise, and easy-to-use tool for supplementing in vitro assays to quantify the effects of biomechanical forces on lymphatic endothelial cells.
authors.affiliation: Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States.
authors.forename: Jeffrey A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Kornuta
authors.forename: Matthew E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Nipper
authors.forename: J Brandon
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Dixon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D001698:Biomedical Engineering / Q000295:instrumentation; D042783:Endothelial Cells / Q000502:physiology*; D004729:Endothelium, Lymphatic / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013314:Stress, Mechanical