Electrostimulation in an autonomous culture lab-on-chip provides neuroprotection of a retinal explant from a retinitis pigmentosa mouse-model

In this paper an autonomous culture system with the capability to electrostimulate organotypic cultures is described, and its utility is demonstrated by the neuroprotection achieved in retinal explants. The system is composed of a lab-on-chip (LOC), an electronic circuit and a data acquisition devic...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Cabello Valverde, Miguel, Mozo, Marta, Cerda, Berta De la, Aracil Fernández, Carmen, Díaz Corrales, Francisco Javier, Perdigones Sánchez, Francisco, Valdés Sánchez, Lourdes, Relimpio, Isabel, Bhattacharya, Shom Shanker, Quero Reboul, José Manuel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/166653
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/166653
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2019.02.118
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Lab-on-chip
Electrostimulation
Retinitis-Pigmentosa
Micro-incubator
Organotypic-culture
Neuroprotection
Descripción
Sumario:In this paper an autonomous culture system with the capability to electrostimulate organotypic cultures is described, and its utility is demonstrated by the neuroprotection achieved in retinal explants. The system is composed of a lab-on-chip (LOC), an electronic circuit and a data acquisition device. The LOC, in which the culture takes place, includes a microelectrode array (MEA), consisting of a PCB with a group of gold microelectrodes embedded in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a microheater, a thermistor and a microfluidic circuit made of thermoplastic for feeding with culture medium. A plug made of PDMS has been included to facilitate the assembly of the culture LOC, the placement of the mouse retinas inside the MEA and the flow of culture medium. The transparency of the PDMS permits optical applications and a real time monitoring. An electronic circuit allows for a close monitoring of the experiment using a LabVIEW software specifically developed for this setting, including temperature control, heating and electrostimulation. In the experimental conditions, the retinal explants from retinitis pigmentosa mouse-models are dissected the day before neurodegeneration starts, when photoreceptor cell death is expected to progress along the following days, and cultured inside the LOC, using a fluorophore as a live-dead marker. The stimulation is a biphasic square signal of 0.5 Vpp and it is applied for five minutes every other day. Unstimulated RP explants and healthy retinas are used as controls. After seven days, a histological study is performed. We have demonstrated the applicability of this system as an organotypic culture LOC to test the effect of electrostimulation in retinal explants from different mouse models, and found a protective effect on photoreceptor cell death in the conditions tested.