Microfluidics based cell-cell interaction model

Abstract

Micro fluidics is a term which defines the technology that is a combination of fluid

mechanics, biology and chemistry .This technology facilitates the flow of micro and nano

scale volumes through the miniaturized channels for many biological applications. The

purpose of this study is to target at one of the upcoming research field (i.e.) the in vitro

diagnostics for co-culture systems. The combination of the micro fluid platform along

with cell culture to study the cell-cell interaction facilitates the complex interactions

between the cancer cells and human stromal cells that occur during metastasis in vitro is

an example of cell-cell interaction which is quite difficult to understand, so a micro

fluidic model that provides better understanding of the invasion of the cancer cells is

needed. In this study such a microfuidic chip has been developed whereby the bone

marrow stromal cells have been cultured within the chip in a 3D microenvironment. This

chip can be used to study various phenomena like cell-cell interactions, cell-matrix

interactions, cell migration, etc. The results obtained from this study forms the milestone

for the future potential bio mimetic micro systems as a replacement of lab animals in

in vitro diagnostics.