Growth and positioning of adipose-derived stem cells in microfluidic devices

• Published in: Lab on a chip 2012-11, Vol.12 (22), p.4829-4834
• Main Authors: Wadhawan, Nitin, Kalkat, Harmandeep, Natarajan, Kanmani, Ma, Xiuli, Gajjeraman, Sivakumar, Nandagopal, Saravanan, Hao, Ning, Li, Jing, Zhang, Michael, Deng, Jixian, Xiang, Bo, Mzengeza, Shadreck, Freed, Darren H, Arora, Rakesh C, Tian, Ganghong, Lin, Francis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adipose Tissue - cytology; Animals; Cell Culture Techniques - instrumentation; Cell Movement - drug effects; Cell Proliferation - drug effects; Electric Conductivity; Epidermal Growth Factor - pharmacology; Microfluidic Analytical Techniques - instrumentation; Rats; Stem Cells - cytology; Stem Cells - drug effects
• ISSN: 1473-0197; 1473-0189
• DOI: 10.1039/c2lc40891k

Stem cells hold great promise for treatment of various degenerative diseases. However, clinical studies have only shown very moderate benefits of cell therapy. We believe that insufficiency of therapeutic benefits is due to limited homing of implanted stem cells to targeted organs. Microfluidic devices are a very useful research tool for quantitative characterizations of stem cells. The present study therefore was to assess the effects of epidermal growth factor (EGF) and direct current electric field (dcEF) on the growth and trafficking of adipose-derived stem cells (ASC). It was found that EGF did not affect cell proliferation in cell-culture flasks. However, ASC proliferated at a higher rate in microfluidic devices with continuous infusion of EGF. Furthermore, we found that ASC migrated toward an EGF gradient in microfluidic devices. Moreover, we found that ASC tended to position perpendicularly to dcEF. The results suggest that EGF and dcEF may be effective in guiding homing and trafficking of implanted ASC. We show that EGF guides the spatial growth and migration of adipose-derived stem cells and electric field mediates ASC orientation.