Liver and kidney cells cultures in a new perfluoropolyether biochip

Although microfluidics represents a promising technology for drug screening industry and toxicity tests, their industrial applications using cells are limited by drawbacks of the weakly mass production capability of the biochips. In this work, we report the fabrication of resistant fluorinated microfluidic devices using a material widely used in polymer industries. To build the microdevices, two patterned layers with precise and regular microchannels were developed by photocuring of perfluoropolyethers (PFPEs). These layers were successfully sealed by UV irradiation. Then, Liver HepG2/C3A and kidney MDCK cells were cultured in PFPE biochips. The growth, cell viability and basal metabolism of cells cultured in PFPE biochips were studied and compared with results obtained using polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) biochips. The results have shown that the cells can attach to the biochip bottom, spread, and proliferate well in PFPE biochip (similar to the cells in PDMS biochip). Furthermore, metabolisms of cell cultures in PFPE biochip, such as glucose consumption, albumin and urea productions, were proved similar to the results obtained in PDMS biochips. These results highlighted the functionality of the HepG2/C3A and MDCK cells in PFPE microfluidic devices and illustrated their potential to replace PDMS devices.