A Microfluidic Device for Culturing an Encapsulated Ovarian Follicle

Micromachines

Xiaohui Yu¹  Mengjie Fu¹  Aziz Ur Rehman Aziz²  Chunyang Geng²  Bo Liu²  Bingcheng Lin³  Yong Luo³  Jiu Deng³ 

[1] Dalian Institute of Maternal and Child Health Care, Dalian 116024, China;Department of Biomedical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China;School of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China;

关键词: ovarian follicles;    microfluidics;    organ on a chip;   

DOI  :  10.3390/mi8110335

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Microfluidic chips have been proved effective in mimicking different organs of human body. Simulating human ovarian follicles by microfluidic device will be useful in exploring the mechanism of folliculogenesis and related diseases. In this paper, a microfluidic chip was designed to culture a single human pre-antral follicle. Ovarian follicles were first encapsulated in 3D calcium alginate hydrogel beads and then cultured on chip and in dish under same conditions. The diameters of cultured ovarian follicles were measured, and the same amount of medium was collected from microfluidic device or dish per two days for measuring the estradiol and androgen concentrations. The results confirmed the successful growth of ovarian follicles on chip with their hormonal trends and diameters increase, which were similar to ovarian follicles cultured in dish. It is concluded that this microfluidic chip can be used to culture a single human ovarian follicle, which provides a useful tool to explore the hormonal changes and their interactions during folliculogenesis.

【 授权许可】

Unknown