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Author Spotlight: Advancing the Use of Tissue Chip Technology for Studying Human Tissues
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A high-throughput microfluidic bilayer co-culture platform to study endothelial-pericyte interactions
Miles T Rogers1,2, Ashley L Gard1, Robert Gaibler1
1The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc., 555 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
Scientific Reports
|June 10, 2021
Summary
This study introduces the PREDICT96 organ-on-chip platform for high-throughput co-culture of retinal microvascular cells. The system enables robust study of cell interactions for improved drug discovery and disease modeling.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Cell Biology
- Pharmacology
Background:
- Organ-on-chip models enhance drug safety and efficacy prediction by mimicking human physiology.
- Studying in vitro cell interactions is limited by complex tissue models and low-throughput culture systems.
- Co-culture models are crucial for recapitulating in vivo cellular microenvironments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a high-throughput co-culture microvascular model using the PREDICT96 organ-on-chip platform.
- To demonstrate the compatibility of the platform with various scalable assays for analyzing cell interactions.
- To validate the model's responsiveness to physiological perturbations and compare co-culture vs. mono-culture systems.
Main Methods:
- Development of a 96-arrayed bilayer microfluidic device (PREDICT96) with retinal microvascular endothelial cells and pericytes.
- Co-culture of cells on opposing sides of a microporous membrane within the microfluidic devices.
- Assessment of platform compatibility with assays including macromolecular permeability, image-based screening, Luminex, and qPCR.
- Evaluation of model response to barrier disruption, inflammatory stimulation, and fluid shear stress.
Main Results:
- The PREDICT96 platform supports co-culture of retinal microvascular endothelial cells and pericytes in a high-throughput format.
- The platform is compatible with multiple scalable assays, allowing for channel- or cell type-specific readouts.
- The co-culture microvascular model demonstrated responsiveness to various perturbations, outperforming endothelial mono-cultures.
- Results confirmed the robustness of co-culture systems for studying microvascular cell interactions.
Conclusions:
- The PREDICT96 platform provides a robust and scalable system for studying cellular interactions in microvascular models.
- The developed assays and co-culture approach enhance the predictive power of organ-on-chip models for drug discovery.
- This platform holds potential for applications in disease modeling and the development of other complex tissue models.
