随着芯片器官(OoC)领域的快速发展和商业利益,需要满足关键实验需求并实现原型设计和大规模生产的材料。这里,我们利用了透气的,热塑性材料聚甲基戊烯(PMP)。测试了三种方法来制作适用于透射光学显微镜的透明PMP薄膜:热压成型,挤压,和商业广告的抛光,模糊的挤出薄膜。将透明膜(厚度为20、125、133、356和653μm)组装为密封培养室装置中的细胞粘附层,在A549细胞培养(癌性肺上皮细胞)4天后评估所得氧浓度。氧气浓度稳定在15.6%和11.6%之间,薄膜越厚,氧气浓度越低。细胞粘附,扩散,和生存力与所有PMP膜(涂有聚L-赖氨酸)的玻璃相当,和透明度是足够的透射电镜贴壁细胞。热压成型被认为是首选的薄膜成型方法,由于优异的和可重复的薄膜透明度,很容易改变薄膜厚度的可能性,和设备普遍可用。通过IR二色性表征PMP膜中的分子取向。不出所料,挤出的薄膜显示出清晰的取向,但是一个新的结果是热压成型也可能引起一些取向。据报道,取向会影响渗透性,但是对于这项研究中的电影,我们得出的结论是,方向不是一个关键因素。根据获得的结果,我们发现PMP可能有助于具有相关体内氧浓度的OoC模型。结合已建立的热塑性塑料的大规模生产方法,我们预见了PMP在OoC领域的有用作用。
With the rapid development and commercial interest in the organ-on-a-chip (OoC) field, there is a need for materials addressing key experimental demands and enabling both prototyping and large-scale production. Here, we utilized the gas-permeable, thermoplastic material polymethylpentene (PMP). Three methods were tested to prototype transparent PMP films suitable for transmission light microscopy: hot-press molding, extrusion, and polishing of a commercial, hazy extruded film. The transparent films (thickness 20, 125, 133, 356, and 653 µm) were assembled as the cell-adhering layer in sealed culture chamber devices, to assess resulting oxygen concentration after 4 days of A549 cell culture (cancerous lung epithelial cells). Oxygen concentrations stabilized between 15.6% and 11.6%, where the thicker the film, the lower the oxygen concentration. Cell adherence, proliferation, and viability were comparable to glass for all PMP films (coated with poly-L-lysine), and transparency was adequate for transmission light microscopy of adherent cells. Hot-press molding was concluded as the preferred film prototyping method, due to excellent and reproducible film transparency, the possibility to easily vary film thickness, and the equipment being commonly available. The molecular orientation in the PMP films was characterized by IR dichroism. As expected, the extruded films showed clear orientation, but a novel result was that hot-press molding may also induce some orientation. It has been reported that orientation affects the permeability, but with the films in this study, we conclude that the orientation is not a critical factor. With the obtained results, we find it likely that OoC models with relevant in vivo oxygen concentrations may be facilitated by PMP. Combined with established large-scale production methods for thermoplastics, we foresee a useful role for PMP within the OoC field.