A microfluidic lab chip for the manipulation and co-culturing of embryos with stromal cells

The combination of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and microfluidic technology might provide a solution to infertility via increasing the success rate of IVF. Our microfluidic embryo lab chip takes advantage of passive trapping for embryo manipulation and dynamic perfusion for co-cultivation. The embryos were gently captured one by one by the passive trapping system to the groove. The medium in the liquid-pushing channels pushed the captured embryos to the G-shape co-culture chambers. The embryo manipulation was designed to push the 2-cell embryo and the mature embryo forwards and backward in/out of the co-culture chamber on desire. The perfused channels provided the thrust for the embryo manipulation and the dynamic perfusion through the holes on the middle-layer porous PDMS membrane. The embryos were co-cultured with stromal cells to provide the biomimetic microenvironment for embryo growth/development. We observed at least a several-hours faster growth/development rate of embryos for on-chip culture than the traditional droplet culture method. The blastocyst development rate of our on-chip embryo co-culture group increased by 16.1% than that of the off-chip co-culture group on E3.5. The mid-blastocyst embryos in our on-chip co-culture group were transplanted back into the uterus of the female mouse for confirmation of our chip development.