Kidney-On-A-Chip Model Development Service

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Kidney-on-a-chip simulates the microenvironment in the body through bioengineering, providing an unprecedented powerful tool for kidney disease models and drug toxicity screening. Creative Biolabs currently offers standard and custom kidney-on-a-chip to facilitate your research on kidney physiology and pathology.

Microenvironment and Key Features of Kidney

The kidney is a complex organ composed of more than 20 kinds of cells, including glomerular endothelial cells, mesangial cells, podocytes and specific tubular epithelial cells. Together, these cells filter the blood, control the excretion of toxins and metabolic waste, and reabsorb water and solutes from body fluids. The renal microenvironment provides many cells with growth scaffolds that support normal physiological functions, chemical signals and mechanical stimuli, and these signals affect and regulate almost all cellular functions including cell proliferation, differentiation, polarization, and gene expression. Cells in the kidney are exposed to constant stimuli from fluid flow, adjacent cells, and the extracellular matrix, especially fluid shear stress stimuli from blood flow, the frequency, duration, and magnitude of which vary widely between cells, while each type of cell is highly sensitive to shear stress deviating from normal values.

The microenvironmental characteristics of the kidney are the key to building a kidney-on-a-chip. Fig 1. The microenvironmental characteristics of the kidney are the key to building a kidney-on-a-chip. (Wang, 2022)

Typical Kidney-On-A-Chip Model

As a miniaturized, low-cost bridge between overly simple two-dimensional culture models and expensive and unpredictable animal models, microfluidic kidney chips have been widely used in pathophysiology and toxicity screening platforms. Kidney-on-a-chip research is mainly carried out on the epithelial cell barrier of glomeruli and renal tubules, which are the main anatomical sites for blood filtration and the main structures for realizing kidney functions.

Depending on the simulated physiological structure, the chip often applies different design principles. Fig 2. Depending on the simulated physiological structure, the chip often applies different design principles. (Valverde, 2022)

For the in vitro simulation of the two, Creative Biolabs now provides the simplest transwell chip to our customers. This simple design is easy to operate and can be used to evaluate the cell permeability of glomeruli. In addition, due to the intimate contact and continuous fluid shearing of cellular interactions in renal tubules, our dual-channel chip is the most powerful tool for kidney in vitro simulation. The basement membrane modified by biomolecules separates the upper and lower channels, and a continuous and stable fluid shear stress is applied by an orbital shaker and an external pump. The selective permeability of the barrier can also be directly assessed according to the transport of specific proteins. This chip will assist your research as an excellent tool in renal physiology and pathology.

Double-layer chip as a commonly used model for simulating the <em>in vivo</em> structure of the kidney. Fig 3. Double-layer chip as a commonly used model for simulating the in vivo structure of the kidney. (Paoli, 2016)

Advanced Kidney-On-A-Chip Model

The simulation of kidney organs mainly revolves around ECM composition, substrate stiffness, confined geometry, and fluid shear stress. The complex combination of these physical environments makes it impossible for a single chip design to fully describe the cumbersome in vivo environment. Microfluidic generators with drug concentration gradients, osmotic pressure gradients, temperature gradients, and oxygen gradients can often provide additional information for research. Fortunately, with our excellent microfabrication platform and microfluidic chip knowledge, Creative Biolabs can improve the basic chip or customize a more advanced, more complex, and more experimental kidney chip and organoid research platform.

Fig. 4 Custom kidney-on-a-chip with unique structures is the best tool for kidney physiology/pathology research. (Wang, 2022)

Our Services

Here at Creative Biolabs, we provide our clients with simple and standardized kidney organ-on-a-chip systems as cell culture and physiology/pharmacology research platforms. Our glomerulus/tubule physiology model reproduces in vivo cell structure arrangement, fluid dynamics, endocrine function and cell metabolism. In addition, we also provide customized services for bionic kidney chips. Through microfluidics, you may explore the interaction between endothelial cells and podocytes, construct transcellular osmotic pressure and electrochemical gradients, and control oxygen content and shear stress. Whether you want to further understand normal kidney function or need in vitro models of pathological assays, our kidney-on-a-chip and custom services will be your most beneficial research tools, so don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.

References

Wang, D.; et al. Kidney-on-a-Chip: Mechanical stimulation and sensor integration. Sensors. 2022, 22: 6889.
Valverde, M.G.; et al. Organs‑on‑chip technology: a tool to tackle genetic kidney diseases. Pediatric Nephrology. 2022, 37: 2985-2996.
Paoli, R.; et al. Mimicking the kidney: A key role in organ-on-chip development. Micromachines. 2016, 7: 126.

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use.