Well plate-coupled microfluidic devices designed for facile image-based cell adhesion and transmigration assays.

Microfluidic devices have become invaluable tools in recent years to model biological phenomena. Here, the authors present a well plate microfluidic (WPM) device for conducting cell biology assays under shear flow. Physiological shear flow conditions of cell-cell and cell-ligand adhesion within this device produce results with higher biological significance than conventional well plates. The WPM format also produced significant work flow advantages such as faster liquid handling compared to static well plate assays. The authors used the VLA-4-VCAM-1 cell adhesion model as the basis for a rapid, higher throughput adhesion inhibition screen of monoclonal antibodies against VLA-4. Using the WPM device, they generated IC(50) dose-response curves 96 times faster than conventional flow cells. The WPM device was also used to study transmigration of mononuclear cells through endothelial cell monolayers. Twenty-four channels of transmigration data were generated in a single experiment.