细胞电融合芯片内的电场分布对细胞的控制及细胞融合效率有非常重要的意义,它是该类芯片设计的主要因素。电场分布主要由芯片内微通道和微电极的结构决定。在一个新研制的融合芯片中,采用大量微电极构成的阵列来提高融合效率。由于电极数量很多,微通道和微电极的结构和形状复杂,理论计算芯片内部电场分布具有较大难度。利用ANSYS有限元分析软件,对细胞电融合芯片中的电场分布进行模拟分析,得到其强度分布及变化梯度。通过不同设计的对比分析,提出了更加适合于细胞电融合的电极阵列结构模型——矩形梳状交叉微电极阵列,为高效细胞电融合芯片的实现奠定了基础。在矩形梳状交叉微电极阵列原型芯片的实验研究中,细胞融合(植物原生质体融合)效率约为40%,超过了传统的化学融合(小于1%)、电融合(小于10%),以及最初所采用的矩形对称梳状电极(小于20%)。表明在该融合芯片上可以实现高效的细胞电融合。
In the cell-fusion chip, the microelectrode array composed of a large number of microelectrodes was used to obtain the high cell-fusion efficiency. Its simulation was difficult because there were too many electrodes, complex channel geometry and microelectrode structure on this chip. ANSYS software was used to simulate electric field profile (strength and gradient) in cell fusion chip. Comparing different designs, the layout of electrodes was optimized and an interdigital, pectinate, rectangular microelectrode arrays were selected as the main components of the cell-electrofusion chip. In the preliminary experiments on this chip prototype, many plant protoplasts could be fused simultaneously. The fusion efficiency (about 40% ) was much larger than those in traditional chemical induced fusion ( 〈1% ), electrofusion ( 〈10% ) and rectangular symmetrical electrodes based method ( 〈 20% ) , which validated that this new chip could be used as a high-throughput cell-fusion tool.