‘sniffer-patch Assay’ on a Microfluidic Chip for High-throughput Screening of Drugs to Control Neurotransmitter Release

The analysis of neurotransmitter in single cell level is essential because drug screening of many fatal neuronal diseases can be discovered. However, current biological experimental methods have difficulty to increase the throughput of drug screening due to lack of sophisticated fluidic control or cell handling. In order to provide an effective experimental tool for the analysis of neurotransmitter release, we developed a microfluidic device for sniffer patch assay using selective trapping of cell-pairs. Two different cells were positioned using an array of trapping channels with a cross-section of 3 μm by 2 μm. It was designed to be compatible with conventional sniffer patch assay setup. We could verify that the operation of the device and we could obtain comparable result about Ca response of glioblastoma U-87 and HEK293 with NMDA receptor. This result shows the feasibility of microfluidic devices for sniffer patch assay as a new tools for physiological study of glial cells.