Microfluidic device reveals cancer cell behavior under oxygen tension gradient conditions

Oxygen tension can influence the motility, directionality and viability of cancer cells. Existing research on the effects of oxygen tension on the survival of cancer cells has been performed based on uniform oxygen tension, but in reality, oxygen tension is not typically uniform and varies throughout the human body.

Nam et al. created a complex microfluidic device made of an oxygen-permeable material to better simulate oxygen tension in a tumor microenvironment. The device has five channels, including gas, media and gel channels, and was tested using MDA-MB-231 cells and two different anti-cancer drugs.

“One big advantage of the device is its simple nature. The simplified design of the tumor microenvironment allowed us to observe the motility of the cancer cells under oxygen tension,” said author Jessie Jeon.

The authors compared normal oxygen conditions with oxygen tension gradient conditions and found the anti-cancer drugs induce different reactions, depending on oxygen tension. Cancer cells were found to migrate toward the side of the environment with higher oxygen tension and showed decreased viability against certain anti-cancer medication.

“In this study, we were limited in that we could not see the cancer cell’s response to a wider range of oxygen tension,” said Jeon. “We want to observe the response of cancer cells in a wider range of oxygen tension. Also, in the future, we hope to study the behavior of cancer cells in an environment that includes stroma around the cancer cells.”

Source: “Cancer cell migration and cancer drug screening in oxygen tension gradient chip,” by Hyeono Nam, Kenichi Funamoto, and Jessie S. Jeon, Biomicrofluidics (2020). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0011216 .