Issue 9, 2020

Microfluidic device to study flow-free chemotaxis of swimming cells

Abstract

Microfluidic devices have been used in the last two decades to study in vitro cell chemotaxis, but few existing devices generate gradients in flow-free conditions. Flow can bias cell directionality of adherent cells and precludes the study of swimming cells like naïve T lymphocytes, which only migrate in a non-adherent fashion. We developed two devices that create stable, flow-free, diffusion-based gradients and are adapted for adherent and swimming cells. The flow-free environment is achieved by using agarose gel barriers between a central channel with cells and side channels with chemoattractants. These barriers insulate cells from injection/rinsing cycles of chemoattractants, they dampen residual drift across the device, and they allow co-culture of cells without physical interaction, to study contactless paracrine communication. Our devices were used here to investigate neutrophil and naïve T lymphocyte chemotaxis.

Graphical abstract: Microfluidic device to study flow-free chemotaxis of swimming cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
14 Jan 2020
Accepted
19 Mar 2020
First published
24 Mar 2020

Lab Chip, 2020,20, 1639-1647

Microfluidic device to study flow-free chemotaxis of swimming cells

N. Garcia-Seyda, L. Aoun, V. Tishkova, V. Seveau, M. Biarnes-Pelicot, M. Bajénoff, M. Valignat and O. Theodoly, Lab Chip, 2020, 20, 1639 DOI: 10.1039/D0LC00045K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements