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Nature Research, Scientific Reports, 1(5), 2015

DOI: 10.1038/srep11800

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Controlled electromechanical cell stimulation on-a-chip

Journal article published in 2015 by Andrea Pavesi, Giulia Adriani, Marco Rasponi ORCID, Ioannis K. Zervantonakis, Gianfranco B. Fiore, Roger Dale Kamm
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

AbstractStem cell research has yielded promising advances in regenerative medicine, but standard assays generally lack the ability to combine different cell stimulations with rapid sample processing and precise fluid control. In this work, we describe the design and fabrication of a micro-scale cell stimulator capable of simultaneously providing mechanical, electrical and biochemical stimulation and subsequently extracting detailed morphological and gene-expression analysis on the cellular response. This micro-device offers the opportunity to overcome previous limitations and recreate critical elements of the in vivo microenvironment in order to investigate cellular responses to three different stimulations. The platform was validated in experiments using human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells. These experiments demonstrated the ability for inducing changes in cell morphology, cytoskeletal fiber orientation and changes in gene expression under physiological stimuli. This novel bioengineering approach can be readily applied to various studies, especially in the fields of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.