earticle

영어

Microfluidic cell culture system (μFCCS) has been used to reconstitute the tissue microenvironment where cells experience various chemical and mechanical factors such as hypoxia, cell-cell interactions, paracrine and autocrine effects, etc. Previously, we reported microfluidic perfusion condition suits to proliferation of differentiated cells such as hepatocytes (1) while microfluidic static condition suits to growth and differentiation of stem cells (2). Under static condition hATSCs (human adipose tissue-derived stem cells) in μFCCS more strongly expressed HIF1 (hypoxia-inducible factor 1) than those in 2D culture dish in normoxia, suggesting that compacted cells can easily induce hxpoxia, required for hATSCs to be transdifferentiated into the ectodermal lineage like neuronal cells from their mesodermal origin. To more clearly explain this difference, we have been investigating the effect of oxygen concentration on differentiation of hATSCs by growing hATSCs at different oxygen concentrations from normoxia to hypoxia. These results suggest researchers needs to carefully recreate the physical factors like oxygen concentration to mimic the in vivo tissue environment in the chip.