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Flow field analyses of a porous membrane-separated, double-layered microfluidic chip for cell co-culture

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Abstract

Organs-on-chips composed of a porous membrane-separated, double-layered channels are used widely in elucidating the effects of cell co-culture and flow shear on biological functions. While the diversity of channel geometry and membrane permeability is applied, their quantitative correlation with flow features is still unclear. Immersed boundary methods (IBM) simulations and theoretical modelling were performed in this study. Numerical simulations showed that channel length, height and membrane permeability jointly regulated the flow features of flux, penetration velocity and wall shear stress (WSS). Increase of channel length, lower channel height or membrane permeability monotonically reduced the flow flux, velocity and WSS in upper channel before reaching a plateau. While the flow flux in lower channel monotonically increased with the increase of each factor, the WSS surprisingly exhibited a biphasic pattern with first increase and then decrease with increase of lower channel height. Moreover, the transition threshold of maximum WSS was sensitive to the channel length and membrane permeability. Theoretical modeling, integrating the transmembrane pressure difference and inlet flow flux with chip geometry and membrane permeability, was in good agreement with IBM simulations. These analyses provided theoretical bases for optimizing flow-specified chip design and evaluating flow microenvironments of in vivo tissue.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Drs. Beiji Shi and Shizhao Wang for helpful discussions. The simulations were performed on the High-Performance Computing Center of Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures in Nanjing. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 91642203, 31627804, 31661143044, and 31570942), the Frontier Science Key Project of Chinese Science Academy (Grant QYZDJ-SSW-JSC018), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant XDB22040101).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center of Biomechanics and Bioengineering, Key Laboratory of Microgravity (National Microgravity Laboratory), Beijing Key Laboratory of Engineered Construction and Mechanobiology, and CAS Center for Excellence in Complex System Mechanics, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Shenbao Chen, Jinrong Hu, Qihan Ding, Lüwen Zhou, Shiliang Feng, Shouqin Lü & Mian Long

  2. School of Engineering Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Shenbao Chen, Jian Xue, Jinrong Hu, Qihan Ding, Shouqin Lü & Mian Long

  3. State Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Mechanics (LNM), Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Jian Xue

  4. Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, Zhejiang, China

    Lüwen Zhou & Shiliang Feng

  5. Department of Mechanics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Yuhong Cui

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  1. Shenbao Chen
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Correspondence to Shouqin Lü or Mian Long.

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Chen, S., Xue, J., Hu, J. et al. Flow field analyses of a porous membrane-separated, double-layered microfluidic chip for cell co-culture. Acta Mech. Sin. 36, 754–767 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10409-020-00953-4

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