| Description |
Precision-cut tissue slices are an important in vitro system to study organ function because they preserve most of the native cellular microenvironments of organs, including complex intercellular connections. However, during sample manipulation or slicing, some of the natural surface topology and structure of these tissues is lost or damaged. Here, we introduce a microfluidic platform to perform multiple assays on the surface of a tissue section, unhindered by surface topography. The device consists of a valve on one side and eight open microchannels located on the opposite side, with the tissue section sandwiched between these two structures. When the valve is actuated, eight independent microfluidic channels are formed over a tissue section. This strategy prevents cross-contamination when performing assays and enables parallelization. Using irregular tissues such as an aorta, we conducted multiple in vitro and ex vivo assays on tissue sections, including short-term culturing, a drug toxicity assay, a fluorescence immunohistochemistry staining assay, and an immune cell assay, in which we observed the interaction of neutrophils with lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated endothelium. Our microfluidic platform can be employed in other disciplines, such as tissue physiology and pathophysiology, morphogenesis, drug toxicity and efficiency, metabolism studies, and diagnostics, enabling the conduction of several assays with a single biopsy sample. A microfluidic device enables eight independent assays to be performed simultaneously on the surface of topologically irregular tissue sections. Current limitations for assays of tissue slices include, typically, a limited amount of tissue sample—limiting the range of assays that can be performed for a uniform sample—and sensitivity to the surface of the tissue, which might be inconsistent due to the spatially irregular composition of tissue. Here, a team from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico, led by Jose Garcia-Cordero, has developed a microfluidic device that can perform assays on tissue sections with a wide range of topologies and thickness. The device consists of eight independent channels, enabling parallelization, and is demonstrated for tissue from an aorta, for both in vitro and ex vivo assays.#Gadgets |