Effect of flow stimulation on cultured myoblasts on micro-pattern

Abstract

A parallel-piped flow channel with micro-striped patterns has been designed to study the effect of the shear field on the myoblast in vitro. The micro-pattern was manufactured with the photolithography technique and used for the scaffold of the cell culture in the flow chamber placed in the incubator on the microscope. Variation was made on the angle between the stripe of the pattern and the flow direction: 0, 45, and 90 degrees. After cultivation for 4 hours, C2C12 (mouse myoblast cell line) adhered on the micro-pattern was exposed to the shear flow for 4 hours. The wall shear stress is estimated from the parabolic velocity profile in the medium between the parallel walls. With the experimental system, the following tendencies of responses (deformation, orientation, and migration) of each cell was observed. Under the wall shear stress of < 3 Pa, each cell deforms to the round shape at first, and extends again along the stripe-pattern. Orientation of each cell is collapsed during exposure to the wall shear stress of 3 Pa, and is recovered after stopping exposure to the shear field. The results show that the experimental system is available to investigate quantitatively the effect of mechanical stress field on the oriented cell.