Perfusion culture of mammalian cells in microfluidic environments for tissue engineering applications

Abstract

Bioreactors composed of microstructured PolyDiMethylSiloxane (PDMS) have been fabricated for perfusion culture of various mammalian cells. During the perfusion culture in the bioreactors for one week to two weeks, cells showed good attachment, spreading and reached their confluence over the microchannels of the bioreactors. In addition, cellular productions measured during the culture demonstrated the cell functionality. Although the cellular activity of the cells in culture are still low even compared to in vivo tissue, the conclusions of this work are encouraging toward future tissue engineering based on in vitro propagation and maturation of cells combined with microfabrication technologies.