Issue 17, 2024

Continuous flow delivery system for the perfusion of scaffold-based 3D cultures

Abstract

The paper-based culture platform developed by Whitesides readily incorporates tissue-like structures into laboratories with established workflows that rely on monolayer cultures. Cell-laden hydrogels are deposited in these porous scaffolds with micropipettes; these scaffolds support the thin gel slabs, allowing them to be evaluated individually or stacked into thick constructs. The paper-based culture platform has inspired many basic and translational studies, each exploring how readily accessible materials can generate complex structures that mimic aspects of tissues in vivo. Many of these examples have relied on static culture conditions, which result in diffusion-limited environments and cells experiencing pericellular hypoxia. Perfusion-based systems can alleviate pericellular hypoxia and other cell stresses by continually exposing the cells to fresh medium. These perfusion systems are common in microfluidic and organ-on-chip devices supporting cells as monolayer cultures or as 3D constructs. Here, we introduce a continuous flow delivery system, which uses parts readily produced with 3D printing to provide a self-contained culture platform in which cells in paper or other scaffolds are exposed to fresh (flowing) medium. We demonstrate the utility of this device with examples of cells maintained in single cell-laden scaffolds, stacks of cell-laden scaffolds, and scaffolds that contain monolayers of endothelial cells. These demonstrations highlight some possible experimental questions that can be enabled with readily accessible culture materials and a perfusion-based device that can be readily fabricated.

Graphical abstract: Continuous flow delivery system for the perfusion of scaffold-based 3D cultures

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Jun 2024
Accepted
16 Jul 2024
First published
26 Jul 2024

Lab Chip, 2024,24, 4105-4114

Continuous flow delivery system for the perfusion of scaffold-based 3D cultures

Z. R. Sitte, E. E. Karlsson, H. Li, H. Zhou and M. R. Lockett, Lab Chip, 2024, 24, 4105 DOI: 10.1039/D4LC00480A

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