Issue 6, 2006

Rapid heterogeneous liver-cell on-chip patterning via the enhanced field-induced dielectrophoresis trap

Abstract

Biomimetic heterogeneous patterning of hepatic and endothelial cells, which start from randomly distributed cells inside the microfluidic chamber, via the chip design of enhanced field-induced dielectrophoresis (DEP) trap is demonstrated and reported in this paper. The concentric-stellate-tip electrode array design in this chip generates radial-pattern electric fields for the DEP manipulation of the live liver cells. By constructing the geometric shape and the distribution of stellate tips, the DEP electrodes enhance the desired spatial electric-field gradients to guide and snare individual cells to form the desired biomimetic pattern. With this proposed microfluidic chip design, the original randomly distributed hepatocytes inside the microfluidic chamber can be manipulated in parallel and align into the desired pearl-chain array pattern. This radial pattern mimics the lobular morphology of real liver tissue. The endothelial cells, then, are snared into the additional pearl-chain array and settle at the space in-between the previous hepatic pearl-chain array. By this cell-lab chip, we demonstrate the in vitro reconstruction of the heterogeneous lobule-mimetic radial pattern with good cell viability after cell patterning. This work reports the rapid in-parallel patterning of the dual types of live liver cells via the enhanced DEP trap inside the microfluidic chip.

Graphical abstract: Rapid heterogeneous liver-cell on-chip patterning via the enhanced field-induced dielectrophoresis trap

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
10 Feb 2006
Accepted
13 Apr 2006
First published
03 May 2006

Lab Chip, 2006,6, 724-734

Rapid heterogeneous liver-cell on-chip patterning via the enhanced field-induced dielectrophoresis trap

C. Ho, R. Lin, W. Chang, H. Chang and C. Liu, Lab Chip, 2006, 6, 724 DOI: 10.1039/B602036D

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