Abstract
The current state-of-art in 3D microfluidic chemotaxis device (μFCD) is limited by the inherent coupling of the fluid flow and chemical concentration gradients. Here, we present an agarose-based 3D μFCD that decouples these two important parameters, in that the flow control channels are separated from the cell compartment by an agarose gel wall. This decoupling is enabled by the transport property of the agarose gel, which—in contrast to the conventional microfabrication material such as polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)—provides an adequate physical barrier for convective fluid flow while at the same time readily allowing protein diffusion. We demonstrate that in this device, a gradient can be pre-established in an agarose layer above the cell compartment (a gradient buffer) before adding the 3D cell-containing matrix, and the dextran (10 kDa) concentration gradients can be re-established within 10 min across the cell-containing matrix and remain stable indefinitely. We successfully quantified the chemotactic response of murine dendritic cells to a gradient of CCL19, an 8.8 kDa lymphoid chemokine, within a type I collagen matrix. This model system is easy to set up, highly reproducible, and will benefit research on 3D chemoinvasion studies, for example with cancer cells or immune cells. Because of its gradient buffering capacity, it is particularly suitable for studying rapidly migrating cells like mature dendritic cells and neutrophils.
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Acknowledgments
MW would like to thank all members of the Swartz lab during her half year visit there, MW and YK acknowledge the very helpful technical support from Andrew Darling and Nak Won Choi. MW and YK were supported by funds from the National Science Foundation (CBET-0619626) and by grants from the Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC), an STC Program of the National Science Foundation under Agreement No. ECS-9876771. MAS and UH were supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (107602 and 310010).
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Ulrike Haessler and Yevgeniy Kalinin have equal contribution.
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SM1
Movie of murine dentritic cells migrating in a 3D collagen matrix in the absence of a chemokine gradient. Two hours total were recorded. The scale bar, 50 μm. (AVI 91259 kb)
SM2
Movie of murine dentritic cells migrating in a 3D collagen matrix and in the presence of a CCL19 chemokine gradient of 0.11 nM/μm. Two hours total were recorded. The scale bar, 50 μm. (AVI 92026 kb)
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Haessler, U., Kalinin, Y., Swartz, M.A. et al. An agarose-based microfluidic platform with a gradient buffer for 3D chemotaxis studies. Biomed Microdevices 11, 827–835 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-009-9299-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-009-9299-3