A high-resolution real-time quantification of astrocyte cytokine secretion under shear stress for investigating hydrocephalus shunt failure

It has been hypothesized that physiological shear forces acting on medical devices implanted in the brain significantly accelerate the rate to device failure in patients with chronically indwelling neuroprosthetics. In hydrocephalus shunt devices, shear forces arise from cerebrospinal fluid flow. The shunt’s unacceptably high failure rate is mostly due to obstruction with adherent inflammatory cells. Astrocytes are the dominant cell type bound directly to obstructing shunts, rapidly manipulating their activation via shear stress-dependent cytokine secretion. Here we developed a total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy combined with a microfluidic shear device chip (MSDC) for quantitative analysis and direct spatial-temporal mapping of secreted cytokines at the single-cell level under physiological shear stress to identify the root cause for shunt failure. Real-time secretion imaging at 1-min time intervals enabled successful detection of a significant increase of astrocyte IL-6 cytokine secretion under shear stress greater than 0.5 dyne/cm(2), validating our hypothesis and highlighting the importance of reducing shear stress activation of cells.