Body-in-a-cube: a microphysiological system for multi-tissue co-culture with near-physiological amounts of blood surrogate

Published

June 8, 2020

Author(s)

Longyi Chen, Yang Yang, Hidetaka Ueno, Mandy Esch

Abstract

Microphysiologic systems that contain only physiologic amounts of blood surrogate are the most likely to correctly identify toxic drug metabolites. However, operating such devices with low amounts of liquid is technically challenging. Here, we demonstrate a microphysiologic cell culture platform that supports the culture of four human tissues with only physiologic amounts of blood surrogate. We achieved that goal by designing the device as a 3D cube, rather than using the traditional 2D format. That strategy allowed us to place tissue culture chambers in close proximity to each other and reduce the length of interconnecting channels, so that the overall liquid needed to fill the device is lower than in 2D devices. We used the cube to culture four tissues (kidney, GI tract, liver, and bone marrow) in co-culture, finding that it is capable of supporting those tissues for up to three days. Our study suggests that the cube could be used to find drug metabolites that cause acute toxicity, but that additional strategies must be developed to operate microphysiologic devices with low amounts of liquid for longer periods of time, and ultimately use them to detect chronic side effects of drugs.

Citation

Microphysiological Systems

Volume

4

Issue

0

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.21037/mps-19-8

Local Download

Citation

Chen, L. , Yang, Y. , Ueno, H. and Esch, M. (2020), Body-in-a-cube: a microphysiological system for multi-tissue co-culture with near-physiological amounts of blood surrogate, Microphysiological Systems, [online], https://doi.org/10.21037/mps-19-8, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=927344 (Accessed November 21, 2024)