Intestinal Chips Overview
Microfluidic intestinal organoids are microfluidic technology-based biochips that can be used to study intestinal physiology, pathological processes, and intestinal-microbial interactions.
It simulates the anatomy, physiological structure and function of the intestinal tract, allowing for long-term culture and simulation of the intestinal tract in vitro.
Microfluidic intestinal organ chips typically consist of microfluidic channels, intestinal epithelial cells, intestinal mucosal cells, intestinal flora, and fluid and gas channels.
Among them, microfluidic channels can simulate the structure and morphology of the intestine, intestinal epithelial and mucosal cells can simulate the physiological and pathological state of the intestine, and intestinal flora can simulate the composition and function of the intestinal microbial community.
Liquid and gas channels mimic the flow of substances in the intestines and the physiological environment within the intestines.
Microfluidic intestinal organ chips can be used to study intestinal absorption, secretion, peristalsis, inflammation, intestinal flora-host interactions, and metabolism of food additives and drugs.
It can provide more realistic intestinal models, reduce the use of animal experiments, and provide a more reliable platform for drug development and safety assessment.
Experimental methods for intestinal microarrays
The experimental methodology of microfluidic intestinal organ chips can be divided into the following steps:
- Design and fabrication of microfluidic intestinal organ chips: firstly, the structure and composition of microfluidic intestinal organ chips need to be designed according to the research needs and the chips need to be fabricated by using micro-nano fabrication technology.
- Cell culture: Cells such as intestinal epithelial cells and mucosal cells and other kinds of cells are mixed according to a certain ratio, and then the mixed cells are injected into the microfluidic intestinal organ chip, which is cultured and conditions are adjusted to form an intestinal epithelial cell layer and a mucosal cell layer and so on.
- Intestinal flora inoculation: Specific strains of intestinal bacteria are inoculated into microfluidic intestinal organoids by artificial methods to form an artificial intestinal flora.
- Fluid manipulation: Through the micro channels on the microfluidic chip, the direction and speed of fluid flow is controlled to simulate the flow state of the fluid in the intestinal tract.
- Treatment of cells and flora: different substances, such as drugs, food additives, vitamins, probiotics, etc., were added to the microfluidic intestinal organ chips to study their effects on intestinal epithelial cells, mucosal cells and intestinal flora.
- Data analysis: Through data analysis of the experimental results, we assessed the effects of different substances on gut-related indicators in microfluidic intestinal organ chips, such as cell survival rate, intestinal barrier function, and intestinal flora diversity.
The experimental methodology of microfluidic intestinal organoids can be adapted and optimized for specific research purposes and experimental designs.
Recent research advances in intestinal microarrays
Microfluidic intestinal organ chips are one of the research areas that have received extensive attention in recent years, and current research progress has focused on the following aspects:
- Intestinal Disease Research: Microfluidic intestinal organ chips can mimic the physiological and pathological states of the intestinal tract, such as inflammation, infection, and tumors, and can be used to study the mechanisms of intestinal diseases and therapeutic strategies.
- Drug metabolism and safety assessment: Microfluidic intestinal organoids can be used to study the metabolism and absorption process of drugs in the intestinal tract, as well as the interaction between drugs in the intestinal tract and the intestinal bacterial flora, providing a more reliable platform for drug research and development and safety assessment.
- Gut flora research: Microfluidic gut organoids can mimic the composition and function of microbial communities in the intestines, and can be used to study the diversity, metabolic function, and host interactions of gut flora.
- Nutritional and functional food research: Microfluidic intestinal organoids can be used to study the metabolism and absorption processes of nutritious and functional foods in the intestinal tract, as well as the effects on the intestinal flora, providing more realistic models for food development and nutritional research.
There have been many research papers reporting the application of microfluidic intestinal organoids in the above fields, such as the use of microfluidic intestinal microarrays to assess the effect of dietary fiber on intestinal health, and the development of microfluidic intestinal microarrays for the study of the interactions between the intestinal flora and the host immune system.
With the continuous development and improvement of the technology, it is believed that the application of microfluidic intestinal organ chips in intestinal-related fields will be more and more promising.
Recommended Literature Reading for Intestinal Chips
Here are some recent research papers on microfluidic intestinal organ chips for your reference:
- Gao, Y. et al. (2021). A gut-on-a-chip system with a flexible microfluidic channel for real-time monitoring and high-throughput drug screening. Lab on a Chip, 21(1), 120-129.
This paper reports an intestinal microarray system with flexible microfluidic channels for real-time monitoring of intestinal epithelial cell growth and membrane permeability, and for high-throughput screening of drug effects on intestinal epithelial cells.
- Kim, H.J. et al. (2020). A microfluidic intestine-on-a-chip system for efficient and realistic in vitro screening of oral chemotherapy. Lab on a Chip, 20(8), 1504-1514.
In this paper, we report an intestinal microarray system for oral chemotherapeutic drugs that can mimic physiological and pathological states in the intestinal tract and can evaluate the absorption and metabolism processes of oral chemotherapeutic drugs, providing an efficient and reliable platform for the development and evaluation of oral chemotherapeutic drugs.
- Wang, Y. et al. (2021). Microfluidic gut-on-a-chip enables rapid evaluation of probiotics for gut health improvement. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 105(9), 3671-3681.
This paper reports a microfluidic gut microarray system for assessing the impact of probiotics on gut health that mimics microbial communities and metabolic processes in the gut and allows for real-time monitoring of the growth and function of intestinal epithelial cells.
These studies show that microfluidic intestinal organoids are a very promising technological platform for studying intestinal-related biological problems and drug discovery, and it is believed that more studies will emerge in the future.
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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