Microfluidic Technology for the Generation of Cell Spheroids and Their Applications
1
School of Natural Sciences, Nathan Campus, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, Brisbane, QLD 4111, Australia
2
QLD Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Nathan Campus, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, Brisbane, QLD 4111, Australia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Aaron T. Ohta and Wenqi Hu
Micromachines 2017, 8(4), 94; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi8040094
Received: 11 January 2017 / Revised: 13 March 2017 / Accepted: 15 March 2017 / Published: 23 March 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microdevices and Microsystems for Cell Manipulation)
A three-dimensional (3D) tissue model has significant advantages over the conventional two-dimensional (2D) model. A 3D model mimics the relevant in-vivo physiological conditions, allowing a cell culture to serve as an effective tool for drug discovery, tissue engineering, and the investigation of disease pathology. The present reviews highlight the recent advances and the development of microfluidics based methods for the generation of cell spheroids. The paper emphasizes on the application of microfluidic technology for tissue engineering including the formation of multicellular spheroids (MCS). Further, the paper discusses the recent technical advances in the integration of microfluidic devices for MCS-based high-throughput drug screening. The review compares the various microfluidic techniques and finally provides a perspective for the future opportunities in this research area.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
microfluidics; bioMEMS; cell spheroids; three-dimensional cell culture; tissue engineering
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Vadivelu, R.K.; Kamble, H.; Shiddiky, M.J.A.; Nguyen, N.-T. Microfluidic Technology for the Generation of Cell Spheroids and Their Applications. Micromachines 2017, 8, 94.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
