Abstract
The brain consists of neurons, glial cells, blood vessels, extracellular matrix and other components. The neurovascular unit system serves as a model to study interactions between neurons and other kinds of cells. In this study, we investigated culture conditions to construct this unit in a microfluidic cell culture system. Our microfluidic device has three microchannels; the central channel contains hydrogel, which is sandwiched by the other two channels filled with medium. Neural stem cells or human brain microvascular endothelial cells were seeded into the medium channel and cultured on the surface of the gel. In the field of tissue engineering, some kinds of gels, such as collagen I, fibrin, Matrigel, have been used for cell culture. Therefore, we tested several kinds of gel materials to clarify which gel material facilitates construction of neural networks or microvascular networks. The culture of neural stem cells was analyzed by measuring the length of axons of neurons, while the culture of endothelial cells was investigated in terms of the ability of angiogenesis. We found that neural stem cells differentiated into neurons and constructed neural network in fibrin-Matrigel mixed gel. This gel material also allowed endothelial cells to construct microvascular networks.
