3D breast cancer model on silk fibroin–integrated microfluidic chips

Abstract

To imitate in vivo environment of cells, microfluidics offer controllable fashions at micro-scale and enable regulate flow-related parameters precisely, leveraging the current state of 3D systems to 4D level through the inclusion of flow and shear stress. In particular, integrating silk fibroin as an adhering layer with microfluidic chips enables to form more comprehensive and biocompatible network between cells since silk fibroin holds outstanding mechanical and biological properties such as easy processability, biocompatibility, controllable biodegradation, and versatile functionalization. In this chapter, we describe design and fabrication of a microfluidic chip, with silk fibroin-covered microchannels for the formation of 3D structures, such as MCF-7 (human breast cancer) cell spheroids as a model system. All the steps performed here are characterized by surface-sensitive tools and standard tissue culture methods. Overall, this strategy can be easily integrated into various high-tech application areas such as drug delivery systems, regenerative medicine, and tissue engineering in near future.