Abstract
Electrical stimulation of mammalian cells in vitro, including stem or neuronal cells and myocytes, has been a widely established method for assessing physiological or pathophysiological mechanisms in a variety of fields of research. Conventional infrastructure used in in vitro electrical stimulation experiments is typically proprietary, noncustomizable, costly, and requires a high level of skill to use and maintain. The emergence of rapid prototyping technology makes it possible to quickly engineer alternatives to conventional stimulation infrastructure that are open source, customizable, low cost, and user friendly. In this study, we describe the rapid prototype of a three-dimensional (3D)-printed reusable growth chamber with integrated electrodes for electrical stimulation and parallel microscopic evaluation of cultured cells that can easily be reconstructed within a few hours using 3D desktop printing and off-the-shelf components. The chamber is light weight (∼8 g), small (76 × 26 × 6 mm), and extremely low cost (<EUR 1). We demonstrate the applicability of the printed device for maintenance of in vitro cultures as well as for electrical and chemical stimulation using the conditionally immortal dorsal root ganglia cell line MED17.11 as a model system. The applicability for microscopic evaluation was demonstrated by time-resolved high-content imaging of the intracellular calcium concentration as a measure of stimulation-induced membrane depolarization. We provide a comprehensive parts list, 3D design files, a wiring diagram, and software code for rebuilding the cost-effective infrastructure for electrical and/or chemical stimulation and parallel high-content microscopy of cells in vitro. While this work focuses on electrical stimulation of mammalian cells, the presented technology could also be adapted for use with other biological specimens and provides a general example of rapidly prototyped low-cost biotechnology for application in life sciences and education.
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