Effect of Medium Flow on Cultured Cells

An effect of the flow on migration and on deformation of cultured cells has been studied in vitro. A flow chamber was designed to observe behavior of adhered cells on a plane in a culture medium flow under a microscope. A thin sheet of silicone rubber was sandwiched by two plates of transparent glass to form a rectangular flow channel of 2 mm width × 52 mm length × 0.1 mm depth. The chamber was tilted to make a slope of 0.17 rad perpendicular to the longitudinal flow direction. Five kinds of cells were used in the experiment: C2C12 (mouse myoblast), L6 (rat skeletal muscle cell), A7r5 (rat aortic smooth muscle cell), CS-2P2-C75 (porcine aortic endothelial cell), and L929 (mouse fibroblast). After several cells adhered to the glass plate, the medium steady flow between 4 and 60 mL/hour was applied on the cells with the syringe pump, and behavior of adhered cells in the flow was observed. The flow generates wall shear stress between 0.3 and 5 Pa. The experimental results show that cells tend to tilt, deform and migrate to the direction of downstream and downward before exfoliation. CS-2P2-C75 and L929 did not adhere to the wall of the glass chamber