Behaviors of liver and kidney explants from chicken embryos inside plasma treated PDMS microchannels

The behavior of liver and kidney explants from chicken embryos was studied inside plasma treated rectangular PDMS (PolyDiMethylSiloxane) microchannels. We found that the plasma treatments enhance the migration of the liver and kidney cells when compared to the untreated PDMS. Liver migration was faster than kidney migration inside the microchannels. In liver cultures, cell migration resulted in the formation of a large and dense 3D tissue. After 96h of cultures, we estimated a velocity of the migration of the liver tissues inside the microchannels about 120 ± 20, 170 ± 50, 100 ± 15 μm/day respectively for the15s, 40s and 900s of plasma durations. In the case of the kidney, we estimated a velocity of migration of 50 ± 20, 50 ± 25, 100 ±50 μm/day respectively for the 15s, 40s and 900s plasma durations. In addition, we found that the migration of the embryonic cells of both organs was faster when a plasma treatment of PDMS is applied as a surface treatment when compared to our previous work using fibronectin-coated PDMS microchannels. Finally, in the case of the co-cultures on plasma treated microchannels, the liver and kidney cells migrated toward each other and merged after 5days whereas only the kidney migration was triggered in co-cultures using the fibronectin treatments. In term of liver and kidney tissue engineering, our results suggest that in vitro scaffolds filling (and cell colonisation) can be accelerated selectively a specific co-culture condition and surface treatment.