A microfluidic cardiac flow profile generator for studying the effect of shear stress on valvular endothelial cells

Jungkyu Kim, Joohyung Lee, Zachary Estlack, Balapitiyage Jeewani Himali Somaweera, Xinmei Wang, Carla Lacerda

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

To precisely investigate the mechanobiological responses of valvular endothelial cells, we developed a microfluidic flow profile generator using a pneumatically-actuated micropump consisting of microvalves of various sizes. By controlling the closing pressures and the actuation times of these microvalves, we modulated the magnitude and frequency of the shear stress to mimic mitral and aortic inflow profiles with frequencies in the range of 0.8–2 Hz and shear stresses up to 20 dyn cm−2. To demonstrate this flow profile generator, aortic inflow with an average of 5.9 dyn cm−2 shear stress at a frequency of 1.2 Hz with a Reynolds number of 2.75, a Womersley number of 0.27, and an oscillatory shear index (OSI) value of 0.2 was applied to porcine aortic valvular endothelial cells (PAVECs) for mechanobiological studies. The cell alignment, cell elongation, and alpha-smooth muscle actin (αSMA) expression of PAVECs under perfusion, steady flow, and aortic inflow conditions were analyzed to de
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2946-2954
JournalLab Chip
StatePublished - Aug 14 2018

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