Liver Chip Overview
Microfluidic Liver Chip is an organ chip fabricated using microfluidic technology to mimic the liver, which can simulate the structure, function and metabolic pathways of the liver, providing an efficient and reliable experimental platform for the study of liver diseases, hepatotoxicity drug screening and so on.
Microfluidic liver microarrays offer the following advantages over traditional cell culture or mouse models:
- More realistic simulation: Microfluidic LiverChip can simulate the liver microenvironment and complex metabolic pathways, more realistically simulating the physiological process of the liver and drug metabolism.
- Higher reproducibility: The production and experimental operation of microfluidic liver microarrays are highly controllable, allowing for higher reproducibility and stability of experimental results.
- Higher efficiency: Microfluidic Liver Chip can accomplish large-scale experiments on a small-sized chip, which can greatly improve experimental efficiency and save experimental costs.
In recent years, microfluidic liver microarrays have been more and more widely used in liver disease research and hepatotoxic drug screening, for example, to study the biological properties of hepatitis viruses, to evaluate the safety and efficacy of hepatotoxic drugs, and to assess the function of hepatocytes after liver transplantation.
Experimental methods for liver microarrays
Microfluidic Liver Chip is an organ chip fabricated using microfluidic technology to mimic the liver, which can simulate the structure, function and metabolic pathways of the liver, providing an efficient and reliable experimental platform for the study of liver diseases, drug metabolism and so on.
The preparation and experimental method of microfluidic liver microarrays broadly includes the following steps:
- Design and preparation of microfluidic liver chip: According to the physiological structure and function of the liver, a suitable microfluidic liver chip structure is designed and prepared by micro-nanofabrication technology.
- Establishment of hepatocyte culture: Hepatocytes (e.g., hepatocellular carcinoma cells or primary hepatocytes) are inoculated into a cell culture chamber within a microfluidic liver chip with appropriate control of culture conditions (e.g., temperature, humidity, oxygen concentration, etc.).
- Perform drug treatment or disease simulation: After the hepatocyte culture reaches a certain level, perform drug treatment or disease simulation operations, such as adding drugs, viruses, etc., and observe their effects on the growth, metabolism and function of hepatocytes.
- Monitoring of hepatocyte status and metabolites: Hepatocyte status and metabolites, such as cell viability, oxygen concentration, glucose concentration, urea production rate, etc., are monitored by devices such as micro-sensors and micro-instrumentation in the microfluidic chip.
- Data Analysis and Interpretation: Analyze and interpret experimental data to assess the effects of drugs or diseases on hepatocytes and provide reference for drug screening, disease diagnosis and treatment.
In conclusion, microfluidic liver microarray is a cutting-edge liver simulation technology, which can effectively mimic the structure and function of the liver and provide an efficient and reliable experimental platform for liver disease research and drug development.
Recent advances in liver microarrays
Liver chips are miniaturized biochips that mimic the structure and function of the human liver and are used in drug screening, toxicity testing and disease research. Below are the latest research advances in liver microarrays:
- Improved feasibility and reproducibility: In recent years, researchers have improved the feasibility and reproducibility of liver chips by improving materials and production techniques. For example, manufacturing liver microarrays using techniques similar to 3D printing can improve the consistency and reproducibility of the chips.
- Accurately modeling the human liver: researchers are working to develop more accurate liver chips to more accurately model the structure and function of the human liver. For example, researchers are exploring how to build liver chips using multiple cell types and different ratios of cells to better reflect the complexity of the human liver.
- Combined Multi-Tissue Chip Research: Multi-Tissue Chip is a technology that can simulate the entire human organ system. Researchers are currently exploring ways to combine liver chips with chips from other organs to better mimic the physiology of the entire human organ system.
- Application to drug screening: Liver microarrays have been widely used for drug screening and drug metabolism studies. For example, researchers can use liver microarrays to test the metabolism of drugs in the human liver to determine the efficacy and side effects of drugs.
- Application to toxicity testing: Liver microarrays can also be used for toxicity testing. For example, researchers can use liver microarrays to test the toxicity of chemicals to the human liver to determine the safety of chemicals.
In conclusion, liver microarray technology has made significant progress in mimicking the structure and function of the human liver and has been widely used in areas such as drug screening and toxicity testing.
Recommended Literature Reading for Liver Chips
Here are some literature recommendations and presentations in the field of liver microarrays for your reference:
- “Organ-on-a-chip and the kidney”，Krol, S., et al.，Nature Reviews Nephrology，2020.
This review describes the current development and future prospects of liver chips and other organ chips. The text covers the design, fabrication and application of liver chips, as well as the joint application of liver chips with other organ chips.
- “Liver-on-a-chip: a cutting-edge technology for predicting drug metabolism, toxicity and efficacy”，Esch, M.B., et al.，Drug Discovery Today，2015.
This review describes the application of liver microarray technology in drug screening and toxicity testing and its potential for metabolism and pharmacodynamic studies. The paper also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of liver microarrays versus traditional in vitro drug screening methods.
- “Liver-on-a-chip: microphysiological systems for mimicking human liver physiology in vitro”，Zhou, J., et al.，Journal of Laboratory Automation，2018.
This review describes the design and fabrication methods of liver microarrays, including cell sources, biomaterials, and microfluidics. The article also details the application of liver microarrays in metabolism, toxicity and infection studies.
- “Organ-on-a-chip engineering: toward bridging the gap between lab and life”，Zhang, B., et al.，Biotechnology Advances，2020.
This review describes the development history and application prospects of organ chips, including various types such as liver chips, lung chips, and kidney chips. The potential of organ chips in drug discovery, disease modeling and personalized medicine is discussed in the paper.
- “Liver organoids and organ-on-chip systems: from description to application”，Berggren, E., et al.，Cell and Tissue Research，2019.
This review introduces the development history and application prospect of liver organ culture and liver microarray technology. The differences and connections between liver microarrays and liver organ culture, as well as their applications in liver disease research and drug screening, are described in detail in the paper.
Organ-on-a-chip model
Cell migration microarrays to study cell-to-cell interactions and the effects of perfusion versus diffusion-based, real-time analysis of experiments with all cell populations, Cell migration microarrays are designed to mimic the formation and transport of tight and gap junctions (e.g., the blood-brain barrier and other endothelial/tissue interfaces), and are available with a wide range of choices in channel sizes, tissue compartment sizes, and scaffolds, as well as barrier designs.
Slit Barrier or Pillar Barrier Options
Slit Barrier: This device utilizes slits spaced at regular intervals to form a barrier area between the outer and inner chambers.
Available standard design parameters include:
- Outer Channel Width (OC): 100 μm or 200 μm
- Stroke width (T): 50 μm or 100 μm
- Slit Spacing (SS): 50 µm or 100 µm
- Slit width (WS): 5um, variable
DXFLUIDICS
Dxfluidics is a specialized enterprise dedicated to customizing various microfluidic organ chips. With a highly skilled and experienced processing team, we offer one-stop organ chip processing services for our clients. The company is committed to providing high-quality, high-performance biochip products for the fields of biomedicine, biomedicine, bio-detection, cell culture, and more.
Let the flower of life bloom more beautifully, Dxfluidics microfluidic organ chips make miniature life experiments more precise!
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