Cell culture on MEMS materials in microenvironment limited by a physical condition

An integrated microcell culture system to control physical conditions in a microenvironment is proposed. The authors quantitatively evaluated the cytotoxicity of commonly used MEMS materials, that is, glass, negative photoresist SU-8, polystyrene and poly(dimethylsiloxane), by using the proposed system. In consequence, in these materials were not seen the cytotoxicity regarding the proliferation. Since the cellular adhesiveness and the proliferation were correlated roughly with the surface free energy. Hence, the surface free energy is one of the important parameters for evaluating the cytotoxicity of MEMS materials.