Wound Healing Assay Using Microfluidic Channels

An approach was described to produce a wound area in vitro using laminar flow technique to selectively remove cells in microfluidic channels. Cell migration which plays an important role in the process of wound healing can be observed dynamically by this method. In order to prove our system, we have studied its properties by injecting NIH-3T3 cells into main channel and added several reagents to observe the mediatory influence. The results reveal that fibroblast growth factor-2(FGF-2), insulin-like growth factor 1(IGF-I), platelet-derived growth factor BB(PDGF-BB) and ascorbic acid(Vc) groups can promote cell migration compared with the control group. But the average migration distance was diminished in dexamethasone group. It can be concluded that this system can be used to analyze the process of wound healing.