A Simple, Low-Cost and Reusable Microfluidic Gradient Strategy and Its Application in Modeling Cancer Invasion

Microfluidic chemical gradient generators enable precise spatiotemporal control of chemotactic signals to study cellular behavior with high resolution and reliability. However, time and cost consuming preparation steps for cell adhesion in microchannels as well as the requirement of pumping facilities usually complicate the application of the microfluidic assays. Here, we introduce a simple strategy for the preparation of a reusable and stand-alone microfluidic gradient generator to study cellular behavior. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was directly mounted on the commercial polystyrene-based cell culture surfaces by manipulating the PDMS curing time to optimize bonding strength. The stand-alone strategy not only offers a pumpless application of this microfluidic device but also ensures minimal fluidic pressure and consequently a leakage-free system. Elimination of any surface treatment or coating significantly facilitates the preparation of the microfluidic assay and offers a detachable PDMS microchip that can be reused following a simple cleaning and sterilization step. The chemotactic signal in our microchip is further characterized using numerical and experimental evaluations and it is demonstrated that the device can generate both linear and polynomial signals. Finally, the feasibility of the strategy in deciphering cellular behavior is demonstrated by exploring cancer cell migration and invasion in response to chemical stimuli. The introduced strategy can significantly decrease the complexity of the microfluidic chemotaxis assays and increase their throughput for various cellular and molecular studies.