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

Abstract

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, selfcontained, 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.

AFM and Fluorescence Microscopy of Single Cells with Simultaneous Mechanical Stimulation via Electrically Stretchable Substrates

“…The relative hysteresis, calculated as the normalized difference between the strains during compression and stretching, is plotted in Figure 8b as a function of the applied voltage. The observed strain response is of comparable magnitude to that reported for DEAbased electro-actuated devices [13] and is significantly more sensitive than uniaxial stretchers driven by step motors or pneumatic systems. Indeed, the device can produce and control uniform strains below 10%, with a stray field of approximately 9-13% of the maximum applied strain, in both its two-electrode and four-electrode pair configurations.…”

“…They also hold promise for precisely controlled stretching experiments, with minimum interfering stray effects. As a matter of fact, DEAs are starting to be used as cell culture supports for cell stretching experiments [12,13]. Indeed, bioreactors that can be dynamically tunable and lead to compact, self-contained, lightweight and versatile devices, are promising for cell culture mechanical stimulation.…”

Application of plasma polymerized pyrrole nanoparticles to prevent or reduce de-differentiation of adult rat ventricular cardiomyocytes

“…8a , b ). ECM is part of the cardiac tissue and, therefore, to regenerate cardiac tissue it is also necessary to restore the ECM [ 11 , 50 ]. Since PPPyN could be interacting with integrins [ 20 ] and integrins influence a wide range of cellular functions including ECM organization [ 21 , 22 ], PPPyN could be helping some ARVC begin to express their own ECM.…”

Reflecting on Mechanical Functionalities in Bioreactors for Tissue Engineering Purposes

“…The bubble-like structure of the HC-DEA was formed upward when the voltage was applied. A HC-DEA-based bioreactor successfully promoted the orientation of the cytoskeleton (Costa et al, 2020) as a result of an 8 h cyclic stretching of the membrane. The orientation also showed a perpendicular tendency toward the radial stretch direction.…”