Development of vessel mimicking microfluidic device for studying mechano-response of endothelial cells

Pei-Yu Chu; Han-Yun Hsieh; Pei-Shan Chung; Pai-Wen Wang; Ming-Chung Wu; Yin-Quan Chen; Jean-Cheng Kuo; Yu-Jui Fan

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106927

Development of vessel mimicking microfluidic device for studying mechano-response of endothelial cells

iScience. 2023 May 19;26(6):106927. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106927. eCollection 2023 Jun 16.

Authors

Pei-Yu Chu¹, Han-Yun Hsieh^{1

2}, Pei-Shan Chung³, Pai-Wen Wang², Ming-Chung Wu⁴, Yin-Quan Chen⁵, Jean-Cheng Kuo^{4

5}, Yu-Jui Fan^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ College of Biomedical Engineering, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wuxing Street, Taipei 11031, Taiwan.
² Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei 10617, Taiwan.
³ Department of Bioengineering, University of California Los Angeles, 420 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
⁴ Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, No.155, Sec.2, Linong Street, Taipei 11221, Taiwan.
⁵ Cancer Progression Research Center, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, No.155, Sec.2, Linong Street, Taipei 11221, Taiwan.
⁶ International Ph.D. Program for Biomedical Engineering, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wuxing Street, Taipei 11031, Taiwan.

Abstract

The objective of this study is to develop a device to mimic a microfluidic system of human arterial blood vessels. The device combines fluid shear stress (FSS) and cyclic stretch (CS), which are resulting from blood flow and blood pressure, respectively. The device can reveal real-time observation of dynamic morphological change of cells in different flow fields (continuous flow, reciprocating flow and pulsatile flow) and stretch. We observe the effects of FSS and CS on endothelial cells (ECs), including ECs align their cytoskeleton proteins with the fluid flow direction and paxillin redistribution to the cell periphery or the end of stress fibers. Thus, understanding the morphological and functional changes of endothelial cells on physical stimuli can help us to prevent and improve the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

Keywords: Biodevices; Bioengineering; Cardiovascular medicine.