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Bioreactor With Electrically Deformable Curved Membranes for Mechanical Stimulation of Cell Cultures

Physiologically relevant in vitro models of stretchable biological tissues, such as muscle, lung, cardiac and gastro-intestinal tissues, should mimic the mechanical cues which cells are exposed to in their dynamic microenvironment in vivo. In particular, in order to mimic the mechanical stimulation...

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Autores principales: Costa, Joana, Ghilardi, Michele, Mamone, Virginia, Ferrari, Vincenzo, Busfield, James J. C., Ahluwalia, Arti, Carpi, Federico
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6997204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32047746
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00022
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author Costa, Joana
Ghilardi, Michele
Mamone, Virginia
Ferrari, Vincenzo
Busfield, James J. C.
Ahluwalia, Arti
Carpi, Federico
author_facet Costa, Joana
Ghilardi, Michele
Mamone, Virginia
Ferrari, Vincenzo
Busfield, James J. C.
Ahluwalia, Arti
Carpi, Federico
author_sort Costa, Joana
collection PubMed
description Physiologically relevant in vitro models of stretchable biological tissues, such as muscle, lung, cardiac and gastro-intestinal tissues, should mimic the mechanical cues which cells are exposed to in their dynamic microenvironment in vivo. In particular, in order to mimic the mechanical stimulation of tissues in a physiologically relevant manner, cell stretching is often desirable on surfaces with dynamically controllable curvature. Here, we present a device that can deform cell culture membranes without the current need for external pneumatic/fluidic or electrical motors, which typically make the systems bulky and difficult to operate. We describe a modular device that uses elastomeric membranes, which can intrinsically be deformed by electrical means, producing a dynamically tuneable curvature. This approach leads to compact, self-contained, lightweight and versatile bioreactors, not requiring any additional mechanical equipment. This was obtained via a special type of dielectric elastomer actuator. The structure, operation and performance of early prototypes are described, showing preliminary evidence on their ability to induce changes on the spatial arrangement of the cytoskeleton of fibroblasts dynamically stretched for 8 h.
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spelling pubmed-69972042020-02-11 Bioreactor With Electrically Deformable Curved Membranes for Mechanical Stimulation of Cell Cultures Costa, Joana Ghilardi, Michele Mamone, Virginia Ferrari, Vincenzo Busfield, James J. C. Ahluwalia, Arti Carpi, Federico Front Bioeng Biotechnol Bioengineering and Biotechnology Physiologically relevant in vitro models of stretchable biological tissues, such as muscle, lung, cardiac and gastro-intestinal tissues, should mimic the mechanical cues which cells are exposed to in their dynamic microenvironment in vivo. In particular, in order to mimic the mechanical stimulation of tissues in a physiologically relevant manner, cell stretching is often desirable on surfaces with dynamically controllable curvature. Here, we present a device that can deform cell culture membranes without the current need for external pneumatic/fluidic or electrical motors, which typically make the systems bulky and difficult to operate. We describe a modular device that uses elastomeric membranes, which can intrinsically be deformed by electrical means, producing a dynamically tuneable curvature. This approach leads to compact, self-contained, lightweight and versatile bioreactors, not requiring any additional mechanical equipment. This was obtained via a special type of dielectric elastomer actuator. The structure, operation and performance of early prototypes are described, showing preliminary evidence on their ability to induce changes on the spatial arrangement of the cytoskeleton of fibroblasts dynamically stretched for 8 h. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-01-28 /pmc/articles/PMC6997204/ /pubmed/32047746 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00022 Text en Copyright © 2020 Costa, Ghilardi, Mamone, Ferrari, Busfield, Ahluwalia and Carpi. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Bioengineering and Biotechnology
Costa, Joana
Ghilardi, Michele
Mamone, Virginia
Ferrari, Vincenzo
Busfield, James J. C.
Ahluwalia, Arti
Carpi, Federico
Bioreactor With Electrically Deformable Curved Membranes for Mechanical Stimulation of Cell Cultures
title Bioreactor With Electrically Deformable Curved Membranes for Mechanical Stimulation of Cell Cultures
title_full Bioreactor With Electrically Deformable Curved Membranes for Mechanical Stimulation of Cell Cultures
title_fullStr Bioreactor With Electrically Deformable Curved Membranes for Mechanical Stimulation of Cell Cultures
title_full_unstemmed Bioreactor With Electrically Deformable Curved Membranes for Mechanical Stimulation of Cell Cultures
title_short Bioreactor With Electrically Deformable Curved Membranes for Mechanical Stimulation of Cell Cultures
title_sort bioreactor with electrically deformable curved membranes for mechanical stimulation of cell cultures
topic Bioengineering and Biotechnology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6997204/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32047746
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00022
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