The intracellular calcium dynamics in a single vascular endothelial cell being squeezed through a narrow microfluidic channel.

Revealing the mechanisms underlying the intracellular calcium responses in vascular endothelial cells (VECs) induced by mechanical stimuli contributes to a better understanding for vascular diseases, including hypertension, atherosclerosis, and aneurysm. Combining with experimental measurement and Computational Fluid Dynamics simulation, we developed a mechanobiological model to investigate the intracellular [Ca] response in a single VEC being squeezed through narrow microfluidic channel. The time-dependent cellular surface tension dynamics was quantified throughout the squeezing process.

A Novel Tissue-Based Liver-Kidney-on-a-Chip Can Mimic Liver Tropism of Extracellular Vesicles Derived from Breast Cancer Cells.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) from cancer cells remodel distant organs to promote metastasis in vivo. A biomimetic microsystem may compensate costly and time-consuming animal models to accelerate the study of EV organotropism. A tissue-based liver-kidney-on-a-chip is developed with precision-cut tissue slices (PTSs) cultured to represent individual organs.

A microfluidic device with spatiotemporal wall shear stress and ATP signals to investigate the intracellular calcium dynamics in vascular endothelial cells.

Intracellular calcium dynamics plays an important role in the regulation of vascular endothelial cellular functions. In order to probe the intracellular calcium dynamic response under synergistic effect of wall shear stress (WSS) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) signals, a novel microfluidic device, which provides the adherent vascular endothelial cells (VECs) on the bottom of microchannel with WSS signal alone, ATP signal alone, and different combinations of WSS and ATP signals, is proposed based upon the principles of fluid mechanics and mass transfer. The spatiotemporal profiles of extracellular ATP signals from numerical simulation and experiment studies validate the implementation of our design.