Simple connections
Mechanical Stimulation Pack
A versatile package for mechanical stimulation of cells
This package is the perfect setup to create mechanical stimulation in your experiments with your own microfluidic chip.
Main benefits
Easy- Flexible
Can be used with different kinds of mechanical stimulation microfluidic chips
- Designed for cell biology
Contamination-free, sterile
Features
Complete System
All the fluidic components included
Stability
Fluigent’s Push-Pull has unprecedented performances in terms of stability and responsiveness
Versatility
This package can be connected to any mechanical stimulation chip design to fit your needs
Customization possible
We can adapt the package to your custom mmechanical stimulation microfluidic chip to fulfill your needs of specific flow rates, or pressure. The number of Push-Pull, of Flow UNITs can be adapted to your experiments.
Related applications
Main products of the Mechanical Stimulation Package
“The device is well designed and allows for easy control of my microfluidic chips. What I like most is that you are independent of a computer and can directly control both positive and negative pressure.”
Christoph Trenzinger – Stratec
“The Fluigent LineUp series, including the new push-pull pump, enables precise and highly controlled aspiration and respiration of liquids. The set-up allows us to further advance our research in both continuous flow and droplet microfluidics.”
Prof. Jeroen Lammertyn, KU Leuven Belgium – Biosensors group.
Application
At the tissue and body levels, mechanical cues have essential roles in various processes, such as embryogenesis, tissue morphogenesis, vascular angiogenesis, tumor progression, and reproductive biology. They can be exerted in a continuous, temporary, cyclic, or pulsatile manner in the body.
Among the different mechanical cues, stretching and compression can be implemented by deforming PDMS membranes or hydrogel layers through application of positive or negative pressures with Fluigent’s Push-Pull flow controllers. Compressive forces can thus be exerted on 3D cell cultures to expose cells to compressive mechanical cues. Specific microfluidic chip designs combined with pressure controllers can be used as a platform for mechanical stimulation of 3D cell culture within hydrogel matrices.
Create sophisticated multi-modal stimulation patterns
As an example, custom-built microfluidic chips connected to Fluigent instruments enable either the creation of homogeneous stretching (1) or compressions (4) or more sophisticated stimulation patterns (2 and 3). (Paggi and al., 2020) Here, a PDMS membrane can be actuated by three independently pressurized chambers and a variety of programmable deflection patterns can be applied. Thus, various cell stimulation modalities can easily be created by tuning the pressure applied in the different chambers.
This platform has been originally developed to reproduce mechanical stimulations of the cartilage (Paggi et al., 2020, 2022). However, this is a highly versatile system of great interest to model other types of tissues, which also experience complex mechanical actuation patterns in vivo.
Using a custom-built chip coupled to Fluigent Push-Pull pressure controllers which provide excellent pressure control, immediate switching time response and offers a user-friendly and programmable interface, apply accurately a variety of mechanical forces on hydrogel imbedded cells.
Read more about Mechanical Stimulation
Specifications
PRODUCTS
Our Mechanical Stimulation Package contains the following :
| LineUp Push-Pull Pressure and Vacuum controller (x3) |
| LineUp LINK Module (software control) (x1) |
| FLOW UNIT M (x1) |
| LineUp Flow EZ Pressure controller (x1) |
| P-CAP Series P-CAP series 15 mL (x2) |
FLUID HANDLING SYSTEM
| Product | Part Number |
| LineUp Push-Pull Pressure and Vacuum controller | ELUPPU001 |
| LineUp LINK Module (software control) | LU-LNK-0002 |
| LineUp Flow EZ Pressure controller (x1) | LU-FEZ-1000 |
RESERVOIRS
| Product | Part Number |
| 2*15 mL Pcap with 15 mL Falcon tube | P-CAP15-HP |
FLOW METERS
| Product | Part Number |
| FLOW UNIT M | FLU-M-D |
TUBING
| Product | Part Number |
| Tubing and connection Kit Flow UNIT M | CTQ-KIT-LQ |
| 2*Tubing and connection Kit P-CAP 15 mL FEP Tubing with an ID of 500 microns | CTQ-KIT-PC15 |
OxyGEN
| Control in real-time, protocol automation, data record and export |
| ver. 2.1.0.0 or more recent |
Software Development Kit
| Custom software application |
| ver. 21.0.0.0 or more recent |