Microfabricated tuneable and transferable porous PDMS membranes for Organs-on-Chips

Microfabricated tuneable and transferable porous PDMS membranes for Organs-on-Chips

We present a novel and highly reproducible process to fabricate transferable porous PDMS membranes for PDMS-based Organs-on-Chips (OOCs) using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication technologies. Porous PDMS membranes with pore sizes down to 2.0 μ m in diameter and a wide porosity range (...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 13524 - 11
Main Authors: Quirós-Solano, W. F., Gaio, N., Stassen, O. M. J. A., Arik, Y. B., Silvestri, C., Van Engeland, N. C. A., Van der Meer, A., Passier, R., Sahlgren, C. M., Bouten, C. V. C., van den Berg, A., Dekker, R., Sarro, P. M.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 10-09-2018
Nature Publishing Group
Subjects:
13/62
14/34
14/63
142/126
639/166/985
639/166/987
639/166/988
Biocompatibility
Endothelial cells
Fabrication
Humanities and Social Sciences
Membranes
Microelectromechanical systems
multidisciplinary
Porosity
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:We present a novel and highly reproducible process to fabricate transferable porous PDMS membranes for PDMS-based Organs-on-Chips (OOCs) using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication technologies. Porous PDMS membranes with pore sizes down to 2.0 μ m in diameter and a wide porosity range (2–65%) can be fabricated. To overcome issues normally faced when using replica moulding and extend the applicability to most OOCs and improve their scalability and reproducibility, the process includes a sacrificial layer to easily transfer the membranes from a silicon carrier to any PDMS-based OOC. The highly reliable fabrication and transfer method does not need of manual handling to define the pore features (size, distribution), allowing very thin (<10 μ m) functional membranes to be transferred at chip level with a high success rate (85%). The viability of cell culturing on the porous membranes was assessed by culturing two different cell types on transferred membranes in two different OOCs. Human umbilical endothelial cells (HUVEC) and MDA-MB-231 (MDA) cells were successfully cultured confirming the viability of cell culturing and the biocompatibility of the membranes. The results demonstrate the potential of controlling the porous membrane features to study cell mechanisms such as transmigrations, monolayer formation, and barrier function. The high control over the membrane characteristics might consequently allow to intentionally trigger or prevent certain cellular responses or mechanisms when studying human physiology and pathology using OOCs.
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ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-31912-6