Figure 1.
Assembly drawing of the large electric-field chip (LEFC).
The LEFC had connecting holes for the medium inlet/outlet and the agar salt bridges. Cells were cultured in the micro-chamber (the cell culture region). The width, length, and thickness of the micro-chamber were 24mm, 75mm, and 70 µm, respectively.
Figure 2.
Lateral view of the electrotaxis system.
A LEFC was integrated with a transparent ITO heater chip, two Ag/AgCl electrodes with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) as electrolyte, two agar salt bridges (1.5% agar in PBS), a syringe pump, a DC power supply, an ampere-meter, and an inverted microscope.
Figure 3.
Simulated EF in the cell culture region of the LEFC.
The EF strength along the dotted line (between the two arrows) was shown. More than 85% culture area was exposed to the EF strength of 300+/−15mV/mm.
Table 1.
Signaling pathways which were significantly correlated to the EF-regulated genes.
Figure 4.
Biological processes correlated with the EF-regulated genes.
The significantly regulated genes listed in Table 2 (up-regulated) and Table 3 (down-regulated) were categorized with their biological function according to the Gene Ontology annotation.
Table 2.
Significantly up-regulated (>1.5-fold) genes by dcEF.
Table 3.
Significantly down-regulated (< 1/1.5 fold) genes by dcEF.
Figure 5.
Protein-protein interaction between the products of the EF-regulated genes associated with adherens junction.
The diagram showed that the EF up-regulated Fyn, ACP1, and c-Src might directly interact with two kinds of membrane receptors, PDGF receptors and ephrin receptors. Green arrow: positive effect; Red arrow: negative effect; gray arrow: unspecified effect.
Table 4.
Comparison of EF-induced gene expression changes in human dermal fibroblasts (HDF-a), human epidermal keratinocytes (HEKa), and human lung cancer cell line CL1-5.