A Microfluidic Approach for Studying Responses of Bronchial Smooth Muscle Cells Stretching

Asthma is a disease about lower respiratory tract inflammation. A global survey shows that there are about 230 million people with asthma. Asthma is an important issue of public health in the developed and developing countries. We propose a stretchable microfluidic bronchial chip made by polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and glass for studying the effects of cell stretching in asthma in vitro. The bronchial smooth muscle cells (BSMC) were cultured on microfluidic chip under a continuous stretching and release mimicking human breathing. Stretching device consists of 3D printer components, a servo motor and a control panel. We have demonstrated that regular stretching of cells affect its properties. We performed stretching of cells with 13% elongation in 15 cycle per minute for 2 days. The stretching affected cell alignment of bronchial smooth muscle cells. We observed that direction of cell growth and cell stretching direction are perpendicular to each other.