A Microfluidic Platform Based on Robust Gas and Liquid Exchange for Long-term Culturing of Explanted Tissues

Microfluidic devices are important platforms to culture and observe biological tissues. Compared with conventional setups, microfluidic devices have advantages in perfusion, including an enhanced delivery of nutrients and gases to tissues. However, explanted tissues can maintain their functions for only hours to days in microfluidic devices, although their observations are desired for weeks. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is a brain region composed of heterogeneous cells to control the biological clock system through synchronizing individual cells in this region. The synchronized and complicated cell-cell interactions of SCN cells are difficult to reproduce from seeded cells. Thus, the viability of explanted SCN contributes to the study of SCN functions. In this paper, we propose a new perfusion platform combining a PDMS microfluidic device with a porous membrane to culture an explanted SCN for 25 days. We expect that this platform will provide a universal interface for microfluidic manipulation of tissue explants.