Microfluidic lung-on-a-chip for assessment of naonotoxicity

• Main Author: Tan, Fei Yang
• Other Authors: Pui Tze Sian
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Engineering::Bioengineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148016
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Organs-on-a-chip are miniaturized tissues and organs grown in vitro that enable modelling of human physiology and disease. For effective phenotypic screening, it is critical that the assay captures various aspects of complex human physiology. For this FYP, a novel 3D lung-on-a-chip model was developed to exhibit in vivo lung-like tissue structure and function. The proposed configuration facilitates crosstalk between the Human Lung Fibroblast, Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells Green Fluorescent Protein and the A549 epithelial cells while minimizing direct cell-cell interactions due to rapid fibroblast proliferation. This project was to optimise the novel 3D lung-on-a-chip, analyse the HLF migration within the model at Day 3 and Day 5. To operate the lung-on-a-chip, the three optimal concentrations of cell seeding were found to be 1×10^6 cells/ml, 2 ×10^6 cells/ml and 2 ×10^6 cells/ml for the HLF, the HUVEC GFP and the A549 epithelial cells respectively. Fibronectin was proven to be the preferred surface coating for the best cell adhesion and cell confluency. With fluorescent imaging and cell count, there was fewer HLF migration across the HUVEC ECM layer at Day 3 than the HUVEC ECM layer at Day 5. Through statistical analysis, Day 3 was concluded to be the best days of culture. The lung-on-a-chip also proved to be versatile when using different channels for different conditions.