An integrated microfluidic cell array for high-throughput and high-content drug screening

In vitro sensitivity testing of tumor cells could rationalize and improve the choice of chemo- and hormone therapy. Microfluidic technology holds high promise to facilitate the progress of biology by enabling miniaturization and upgrading of current biological research tools due to its advantages such as low sample consumption, reduced analysis time, high-throughput and compatible sizes with most biological samples. In this report, we have developed a microfluidic device integrating drug cytotoxicity assay and anti-proliferation assay. The hormone-sensitive breast cancer cell line MCF-7 cells were assessed for prevalence of apoptosis and mitosis and examined immunofluorescence assay was for anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 and Ki67(a marker of proliferation) expression induced by mitomycin C (MMC) and tamoxifen (TAM). The growth of MCF-7 was inhibited by MMC in a concentration-dependent manner. TAM inhibited the growth of MCF-7 in a dose-dependent manner in static state. However, dynamic effects TAM did not inhibit the growth of MCF-7 cells in 50 ¿M. These results suggested that MMC may be more effective than TAM on breast cancer cells. The microfluidic device, therefore, provides a microscale alternative to currently used in vitro methods of drug screening and is a potential useful tool for high content screening and high throughput screening research.