抄録
We have developed a novel method for on-chip cultivation of neural cells in flexible agarose-microchamber array on the glass slide. Agarose-microchamber is a micrometer order cavity constructed on the surface of agarose-layer by molding the 50-micrometer-high square/circle shaped micro-cast of thick photo-resist, SU-8. In addition, the shape of agarose-microchamber was rearranged by using the “photo-thermal etching method”, in which we used infrared (1064-nm) focused laser beam as the heat source to melt and remove a portion of agarose gel at the heating spot. By using the photo-thermal etching method we can also manufacture narrow tunnel-shaped channels between microchambers. When nerve cells were cultured on the agar-microchamber array chip, the nerve cells in two adjacent microchambers connected through the photo-thermal-etched channel after 48 hours of cultivation. Those results suggest the potential of agarose-microchamber array integrated with the photo-thermal etching method for the next stage of the single cell cultivation and measurement of nerve cells, such as real-time control of cells' interactions during cell cultivation.
