Effect of culture condition on cell viability and gel contraction in a skin chip

Abstract

The importance of physiologically realistic in vitro skin models in development of cosmetics and drugs for skin disorders have been well recognized, but current in vitro skin models carry several limitations in recapitulating the physiology of the human skin. Recently, in vitro skin models in a microfluidic platform have been proposed with improved physiological relevance. Survival and differentiation of skin tissue construct requires accurate refinement of cell culture environment, which can be different for static and dynamic culture conditions. In this study, we studied the effect of different culture conditions on the skin construct in a microfluidic skin chip. Our observation suggests that different seeding cell concentrations, thickness of the collagen matrix, volume of cell culture media and the frequency of media exchange affects the cell viability, extent of collagen gel contraction, and adherence of keratinocytes to the gel matrix. Our study provides valuable information about optimization of cell culture conditions in a microfluidic skin chip.