A novel method of cell culture based on the microfluidic chip for
regulation of cell density
Abstract
The regulation of cell density is an important segment in microfluidic
cell culture, particularly in the repeated assays. Traditionally, the
consistent cell density is difficult to achieve owing to the inaccurate
regulation of cell density with manual feedback. A novel microfluidic
culture method with automatic feedback is proposed for real-time
regulation of cell density in this paper. Here, an integrated
microfluidic system combining cell culture, density detection and
control of proliferation rate was developed. Interdigital electrode
structures (IDES) are sputtered on the microchannel for automatically
providing the real-time feedback information of impedance. The most
sensitive frequency is studied to improve the detection resolution of
the sensing chip. Cells were cultured on the chip surface and the cell
density was detected by monitoring the alternation of the impedance. The
feedback controller is established by least squares support vector
machines (LS-SVM). Then, the cell proliferation rate was automatically
controlled using the feedback controller to achieve the desired cell
density in the repeated assays. The results show that the standard error
of this method is 2.8% indicating that the method can keep consistency
of cell density in the repeated assays. This study provides a basis for
improving the accuracy and repeatability in the further assays of
finding the optimal drug concentration.