FIGURE 1.

Design and characterisation of the Integrated Microfluidic Tumour Array (IMITA) device for multiplexed 3D cell cultures. (A) The IMITA device consisted of two functional blocks (Lin et al., 2017): concentration gradient generator; and (Wei et al., 2017) cell culture array connected by two orthogonal flow circuits for cell seeding and medium perfusion. Scale bar = 1 cm. (B) The cell culture array consisted of 32 cell culture chambers arranged in 8 rows by 4 columns. (C) Each cell culture chamber comprised a cup-shaped micropillar array with 20 µm gaps where the opening faced the seeding flow circuit to trap the incoming cells. A series of micropillars act as cell filters along the medium perfusion direction to prevent cell clogging during cell seeding. Scale bar = 100 µm. (D) CFD simulation showing 8 mass concentrations generated by a linear concentration generator, which were fed into each row of the IMITA device at steady state when operating at 0.02 ml h⁻¹. (E) Simulated relative mass fractions as a function of distance along a single row of cell culture chamber [box indicated in 1(d)] at steady state operating condition. Mass fraction within a single cell culture chamber remained constant while a linear decrease was observed across each chamber in a row. (F) Experimental validation of the concentration gradient generator using rhodamine fluorescent probe. Data are averages of 3 experiment measurements ± standard deviations.