Automated Microfluidic Cell Culture of Stem Cell Derived Dopaminergic Neurons

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2019 Feb 12

PMID 30741972

Citations 34

Authors

Khalid I W Kane

Edinson Lucumi Moreno

Siham Hachi

Moriz Walter

Javier Jarazo

Miguel A P Oliveira

Thomas Hankemeier

Paul Vulto

Jens C Schwamborn

Martin Thoma

Ronan M T Fleming

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Parkinson's disease is a slowly progressive neurodegenerative disease characterised by dysfunction and death of selectively vulnerable midbrain dopaminergic neurons and the development of human in vitro cellular models of the disease is a major challenge in Parkinson's disease research. We constructed an automated cell culture platform optimised for long-term maintenance and monitoring of different cells in three dimensional microfluidic cell culture devices. The system can be flexibly adapted to various experimental protocols and features time-lapse imaging microscopy for quality control and electrophysiology monitoring to assess cellular activity. Using this system, we continuously monitored the differentiation of Parkinson's disease patient derived human neuroepithelial stem cells into midbrain specific dopaminergic neurons. Calcium imaging confirmed the electrophysiological activity of differentiated neurons and immunostaining confirmed the efficiency of the differentiation protocol. This system is the first example of an automated Organ-on-a-Chip culture and has the potential to enable a versatile array of in vitro experiments for patient-specific disease modelling.

Citing Articles

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