Biological implications of polydimethylsiloxane-based microfluidic cell culture
Open accessAbstract
Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) has become a staple of the microfluidics community by virtue of its simple fabrication process and material attributes, such as gas permeability, optical transparency, and flexibility. As microfluidic systems are put toward biological problems and increasingly utilized as cell culture platforms, the material properties of PDMS must be considered in a biological context. Two properties of PDMS were addressed in this study: the leaching of uncured oligomers from the polymer network into microchannel media, and the absorption of small, hydrophobic molecules (i.e. estrogen) from serum-containing media into the polymer bulk. Uncured PDMS oligomers were detectable via MALDI-MS in microchannel media both before and after Soxhlet extraction of PDMS devices in ethanol. Additionally, PDMS oligomers were identified in the plasma membranes of NMuMG cells cultured in PDMS microchannels for 24 hours. Cells cultured in extracted microchannels also contained a detectable amount of uncured PDMS. It was shown that MCF-7 cells seeded directly on PDMS inserts were responsive to hydrophilic prolactin but not hydrophobic estrogen, reflecting its specificity for absorbing small, hydrophobic molecules; and the presence of PDMS floating in wells significantly reduced cellular response to estrogen in a serum-dependent manner. Quantification of estrogen via ELISA revealed that microchannel estrogen partitioned rapidly into the surrounding PDMS to a ratio of approximately 9:1. Pretreatments such as blocking with serum or pre-absorbing estrogen for 24 hours did not affect estrogen loss from PDMS-based microchannels. These findings highlight the importance of careful consideration of culture system properties when determining an appropriate environment for biological experiments.
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PDMS can adsorb small hydrophobic molecules, which can be problematic for drug screening studies.
“PDMS can also adsorb small hydrophobic molecules[9], which can be problematic for drug screening studies.”
From Microfluidics: A New Tool for Modeling Cancer–Immune Interactions (2016) · cites this paper as [9]
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- Authors
- Regehr, K. J., Domenech, M., Koepsel, J. T., Carver, K. C., Ellison-Zelski, S. J., Murphy, W. L., Schuler, L. A., Alarid, E. T., & Beebe, D. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Venue
- Lab on a Chip
- Publisher
- Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
- Published
- 2009
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 15
- Pages
- 2132
- ISSN
- 1473-0189 (ISSN-L)
- 1473-0197
- PMC
- PMC2792742
- OpenAlex
- W1971500740
- Cited by
- 719
- References
- 30
- Citations by year
- 2026: 42 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 49 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 58 · 2019: 47 · 2018: 51 · 2017: 55 · 2016: 48 · 2015: 36 · 2014: 29 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 30
- FWCI
- 2.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Lab on a Chip (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Cancer Institute (K25CA104162, R21CA122672)
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32 GM08349, T32GM008349)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Microfluidic and Capillary Electrophoresis Applications
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › 3D Printing in Biomedical Research
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cell Biology › Cellular Mechanics and Interactions
- Keywords
- polydimethylsiloxane, microfluidic cell culture, MCF-7 cells, NMuMG cells, prolactin response
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cell Line, Cell Membrane, Culture Media, Dimethylpolysiloxanes, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Estrogens, Humans, Luciferases, Transcription Factor AP-1, Cell Culture Techniques, Microfluidic Analytical Techniques
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