The understanding of many biological

Abstract

This paper presents a novel method for studying cilia forming cells in asymmetric microfluidic environments. It has previously been shown that bending the primary cilium by a fluid flow will give rise to a calcium signal, but the sensitivity for flow direction has so far not been studied. The microfluidic device presented here was designed for control of the local direction of fluid flow on the cellular level, and thus, enables studies of cellular response to a direction controlled cilium movement. Cells seeded on cover slips form cilia with the average length 2.9 µm after three days in culture and 4.3 µm after four days. Distinct calcium peaks were found after the initiation of flow in the channel. By using a microstructured flow system we have been able to study the sensitivity of confluent COS 7 cells expressing primary cilium to changes in fluid flow