Issue 17, 2022

Adipose microtissue-on-chip: a 3D cell culture platform for differentiation, stimulation, and proteomic analysis of human adipocytes

Abstract

Human fat tissue has evolved to serve as a major energy reserve. An imbalance between energy intake and expenditure leads to an expansion of adipose tissue. Maintenance of this energy imbalance over long periods leads to obesity and metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes, for which a clinical cure is not yet available. In this study, we developed a microfluidic large-scale integration chip platform to automate the formation, long-term culture, and retrieval of 3D adipose microtissues to enable longitudinal studies of adipose tissue in vitro. The chip was produced from soft-lithography molds generated by 3D-printing, which allowed scaling of pneumatic membrane valves for parallel fluid routing and thus incorporated microchannels with variable dimensions to handle 3D cell cultures with diameters of several hundred micrometers. In 32 individual fluidically accessible cell culture chambers, designed to enable the self-aggregation process of three microtissues, human adipose stem cells differentiated into mature adipocytes over a period of two weeks. Coupling mass spectrometry to the cell culture platform, we determined the minimum cell numbers required to obtain robust and complex proteomes with over 1800 identified proteins. The adipose microtissues on the chip platform were then used to periodically simulate food intake by alternating the glucose level in the cell-feeding media every 6 h over the course of one week. The proteomes of adipocytes under low/high glucose conditions exhibited unique protein profiles, confirming the technical functionality and applicability of the chip platform. Thus, our adipose tissue-on-chip in vitro model may prove useful for elucidating the molecular and functional mechanisms of adipose tissue in normal and pathological conditions, such as obesity.

Graphical abstract: Adipose microtissue-on-chip: a 3D cell culture platform for differentiation, stimulation, and proteomic analysis of human adipocytes

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
15 Mar 2022
Accepted
16 Jun 2022
First published
25 Jul 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Lab Chip, 2022,22, 3172-3186

Adipose microtissue-on-chip: a 3D cell culture platform for differentiation, stimulation, and proteomic analysis of human adipocytes

N. Compera, S. Atwell, J. Wirth, C. von Törne, S. M. Hauck and M. Meier, Lab Chip, 2022, 22, 3172 DOI: 10.1039/D2LC00245K

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