In healthy individuals,the intestinal epithelium forms a tight barrier to prevent gut bacteria from reaching blood circulation.To study the effect of probiotics,dietary compounds and drugs on gut barrier formation and...In healthy individuals,the intestinal epithelium forms a tight barrier to prevent gut bacteria from reaching blood circulation.To study the effect of probiotics,dietary compounds and drugs on gut barrier formation and disruption,human gut epithelial and bacterial cells can be cocultured in an in vitro model called the human microbial crosstalk(HuMiX)gut-on-a-chip system.Here,we present the design,fabrication and integration of thin-film electrodes into the HuMiX platform to measure transepithelial electrical resistance(TEER)as a direct readout on barrier tightness in realtime.As various aspects of the HuMiX platform have already been set in their design,such as multiple compressible layers,uneven surfaces and nontransparent materials,a novel fabrication method was developed whereby thin-film metal electrodes were first deposited on flexible substrates and sequentially integrated with the HuMiX system via a transfer-tape approach.Moreover,to measure localized TEER along the cell culture chamber,we integrated multiple electrodes that were connected to an impedance analyzer via a multiplexer.We further developed a dynamic normalization method because the active measurement area depends on the measured TEER levels.The fabrication process and system setup can be applicable to other barrier-on-chip systems.As a proof-of-concept,we measured the barrier formation of a cancerous Caco-2 cell line in real-time,which was mapped at four spatially separated positions along the HuMiX culture area.展开更多
基金funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie(grant agreement No.812954)the European Research Council(ERC)under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program(grant agreement No.757444 and grant agreement No.863664)+1 种基金funded by the Swedish Research Council(2019-00207)as a national research infrastructurefunding provided by Uppsala University.
文摘In healthy individuals,the intestinal epithelium forms a tight barrier to prevent gut bacteria from reaching blood circulation.To study the effect of probiotics,dietary compounds and drugs on gut barrier formation and disruption,human gut epithelial and bacterial cells can be cocultured in an in vitro model called the human microbial crosstalk(HuMiX)gut-on-a-chip system.Here,we present the design,fabrication and integration of thin-film electrodes into the HuMiX platform to measure transepithelial electrical resistance(TEER)as a direct readout on barrier tightness in realtime.As various aspects of the HuMiX platform have already been set in their design,such as multiple compressible layers,uneven surfaces and nontransparent materials,a novel fabrication method was developed whereby thin-film metal electrodes were first deposited on flexible substrates and sequentially integrated with the HuMiX system via a transfer-tape approach.Moreover,to measure localized TEER along the cell culture chamber,we integrated multiple electrodes that were connected to an impedance analyzer via a multiplexer.We further developed a dynamic normalization method because the active measurement area depends on the measured TEER levels.The fabrication process and system setup can be applicable to other barrier-on-chip systems.As a proof-of-concept,we measured the barrier formation of a cancerous Caco-2 cell line in real-time,which was mapped at four spatially separated positions along the HuMiX culture area.
