Actuation means for the mechanical stimulation of living cells via microelectromechanical systems: A critical review

Desmaële, Denis; Boukallel, Mehdi; Régnier, Stéphane

doi:10.1016/j.jbiomech.2011.02.085

Cited by 52 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 139 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, to precisely understand how cells decipher the mechanical strain and evoke a biochemical response, devices are required to stretch single cells. There are few silicon based MEMS devices that can apply precise and calibrated strain to only one cell in one experiment [22,23] as reviewed by Desmaële et al [24]. These devices have a low throughput and require multiple experiments over several days to test the effect of various strain levels or frequencies that leads to unconfident results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An array of 100μm×100μm dielectric elastomer actuators with 80% strain for tissue engineering applications

Akbari

Shea

2012

Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tBiological cells modulate their behavior, express genes, proliferate or differentiate in response to mechanical strains ranging from 1% to 20%. There currently exists no technique to apply strain to many targeted individual cells in a larger culture in order to perform parallelized high throughput testing. Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are compliant devices capable of generating large percentage strains with sub-second response time, ideally suited by their compliance for cell manipulation. We report an array of 100 m × 100 m DEAs reaching up to 80% in-plane strain at an electric field of 240 V/m. The miniaturized DEAs are made by patterning 100 m wide compliant ion-implanted gold electrodes on both sides of a 30 m thick polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane. We report the important effect of uniaxial prestretch of the membrane on the microactuators' performance; the largest strain is achieved by prestretching uniaxially by 175%. Each actuator is intended to have a single cell adhered to it in order to periodically stretch the cells to study the effect of mechanical stimulation on its biochemical responses. To avoid short-circuiting all the top electrodes by the conductive saline cell growth medium, a 20 m thick biocompatible PDMS layer is bonded on the actuators. In this configuration, 37% strain is achieved at 3.6 kV with sub-second response. This device can be used as a high throughput single cell stretcher to apply relevant biological periodic strains to individual cells in a single experiment.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An array of 100μm×100μm dielectric elastomer actuators with 80% strain for tissue engineering applications

Akbari

Shea

2012

Sensors and Actuators A: Physical

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…With the deformation of substrate membrane, the cells that adhered to the membrane were also stretched. The mechanical stimulation effect on stem cells was directly related to the in-plane strain of the substrate membrane [2]. The out-of-plane displacement (d in Figure 1c) determined the visibility in an inverted microscope to monitor the cells and influenced the adhesion of the cells on the substrate membrane.…”

Section: Experimental Characterisation Of the Devicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Substituting Equation (A3) into Equation (A2) and integrated over the volume in the cylindrical coordinate system, the strain energy expression of the circular substrate membrane under equally outward stretching could be expressed as Equation (2).…”

Section: ( ) ( )mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent studies of cardiac mechanobiology have shown that to a certain extent mechanical stimulation enhances the growth of stem-cell-derived cardiomyocytes in vitro [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Thus, different types of devices have emerged for the purpose of mechanical stimulation for stem cells, such as devices that use out-of-plane circular substrate distension, in-plane substrate stretching, or fluid shear stress (FSS) [7,9,10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Mechanical Analysis of a Pneumatically Actuated Concentric Double-Shell Structure for Cell Stretching

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An available novel system for studying the cellular mechanobiology applies an equiaxial strain field to cells cultured on a PolyDiMethylSiloxane (PDMS) substrate membrane, which is stretched over the deformation of a cylindrical shell. In its application of in vitro cell culture, the in-plane strain of the substrate membrane provides mechanical stimulation to cells, and out-of-plane displacement plays an important role in monitoring the cells by a microscope. However, no analysis of the parameters has been reported yet. Therefore, in this paper, we employ analytical and computational models to investigate the mechanical behavior of the device, in terms of in-plane strain and out-of-plane displacement of the substrate membrane. As a result, mathematical descriptions are given, which are not only for quantitatively determining the applied load, but also provide the theoretical basis for the researchers to carry out structural modification, according to their needs in specific cell culture experiments. Furthermore, by computational study, the elastic modulus of PDMS is determined to allow the mechanical behavior analysis of a fabricated device. Finally, compared to the experimental results of characterizing a fabricated device, good agreement is obtained between the predicted and experimental results. OPEN ACCESSMicromachines 2014, 5 869

show abstract

“…2) Despite having an array of stretching wells, one single strain level can be applied to all the cells, resulting in a low throughput. A few microelectromechanical systems on silicon substrate have been developed to apply uniaxial or biaxial strain to single cells [9,10]. They can apply reliable and calibrated strain levels, though at a very low throughput, meaning that they can stretch only one single cell in one experiment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stretching cells with DEAs

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Biological cells regulate their biochemical behavior in response to mechanical stress present in their organism. Most of the available cell cultures designed to study the effect of mechanical stimuli on cells are cm 2 area, far too large to monitor single cell response or have a very low throughput. We have developed two sets of high throughput single cell stretcher devices based on dielectric elastomer microactuators to stretch groups of individual cells with various strain levels in a single experiment. The first device consists of an array of 100 μm x 200 μm actuators on a non-stretched PDMS membrane bonded to a Pyrex chip, showing up to 4.7% strain at the electric field of 96 V/μm. The second device contains an array of 100 μm x 100 μm actuators on a 160% uniaxially prestretched PDMS membrane suspended over a frame. 37% strain is recorded at the nominal electric field of 114 V/μm. The performance of these devices as a cell stretcher is assessed by comparing their static and dynamic behavior.

show abstract

Actuation means for the mechanical stimulation of living cells via microelectromechanical systems: A critical review

Cited by 52 publications

References 139 publications

An array of 100μm×100μm dielectric elastomer actuators with 80% strain for tissue engineering applications

An array of 100μm×100μm dielectric elastomer actuators with 80% strain for tissue engineering applications

Mechanical Analysis of a Pneumatically Actuated Concentric Double-Shell Structure for Cell Stretching

Stretching cells with DEAs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About