Automated microfluidic cell culture of stem cell derived dopaminergic neurons.
Khalid I W KaneEdinson Lucumi MorenoSiham HachiMoriz WalterJavier JarazoMiguel A P OliveiraThomas HankemeierPaul VultoJens C SchwambornMartin ThomaRonan M T FlemingPublished in: Scientific reports (2019)
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.
Keyphrases
- stem cells
- high throughput
- high resolution
- spinal cord
- multiple sclerosis
- induced apoptosis
- quality control
- single cell
- oxidative stress
- deep learning
- spinal cord injury
- wastewater treatment
- mass spectrometry
- bone marrow
- photodynamic therapy
- label free
- pluripotent stem cells
- high speed
- climate change
- single molecule
- fluorescence imaging