Individual Control and Quantification of 3D Spheroids in a High-Density Microfluidic Droplet Array

Raphaël F.-X. Tomasi (1, 2) , Sébastien Sart (1, 2) , Tiphaine Champetier (1) , Charles Baroud (1, 2)

1 LadHyX - Laboratoire d'hydrodynamique
2 Microfluidique Physique et Bio-ingénierie - Physical Microfluidics and Bioengineering

As three-dimensional cell culture formats gain in popularity, there emerges a need for tools that produce vast amounts of data on individual cells within the spheroids or organoids. Here, we present a microfluidic platform that provides access to such data by parallelizing the manipulation of individual spheroids within anchored droplets. Different conditions can be applied in a single device by triggering the merging of new droplets with the spheroid-containing drops. This allows cell-cell interactions to be initiated for building microtissues, studying stem cells’ self-organization, or observing antagonistic interactions. It also allows the spheroids’ physical or chemical environment to be modulated, as we show by applying a drug over a large range of concentrations in a single parallelized experiment. This convergence of microfluidics and image acquisition leads to a data-driven approach that allows the heterogeneity of 3D culture behavior to be addressed across the scales, bridging single-cell measurements with population measurements.

Keywords: droplet microfluidics; liver toxicity; organoids; spheroids; tissue engineering

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Raphaël F.-X. Tomasi, Sébastien Sart, Tiphaine Champetier, Charles Baroud. Individual Control and Quantification of 3D Spheroids in a High-Density Microfluidic Droplet Array. Cell Reports, 2020, 31 (8), pp.107670. ⟨10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107670⟩. ⟨pasteur-03328779⟩