Culturing cell spheroids in microchamber arrays is a widely used method in regenerative medicine and drug discovery while it requires laborious procedures during medium exchange and drug administration. Here, we report a simple method for the medium exchange and drug testing using a hydrogel-based sealed microchamber arrays. Owing to the high molecular permeability of poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel, the sealed microchamber allows nutrients and drugs in outer medium to pass through. Thus, automatic medium exchange and drug testing for all the cell spheroids inside the microchamber arrays are achieved by simply transferring the microchamber from old medium to fresh medium. Cell spheroids of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes were cultured inside the sealed microchambers, and it was confirmed that the spheroids were stably positioned inside the microchamber even after transferring 10 times. The cell spheroids showed high viability after culturing for 7 days in the sealed microchamber with the transfer-based medium exchange, which allowed cardiac maturation by simultaneous electrical stimulation. Isoproterenol, a model cardiac drug, was administrated from outside the sealed microchamber to demonstrate the feasibility of drug testing by the rapid transfer method.

中文翻译：

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基于水凝胶的密封微腔阵列，用于细胞球体的快速培养基交换和药物测试。

在微腔阵列中培养细胞球体是再生医学和药物发现中广泛使用的方法，而在介质交换和给药过程中需要费力的步骤。在这里，我们报告了一种简单的方法，用于使用基于水凝胶的密封微腔阵列进行培养基交换和药物测试。由于聚乙烯醇水凝胶的高分子渗透性，密封的微腔可以使外部介质中的营养物质和药物通过。因此，通过简单地将微腔室从旧培养基转移到新鲜培养基中，可以实现对微腔室阵列内所有细胞球体的自动培养基交换和药物测试。将人诱导的多能干细胞衍生的心肌细胞球体培养在密封的微腔室内，并且确认了即使在转移10次之后，球体也被稳定地定位在微腔室内。在基于转移的培养基交换的密封微腔中培养7天后，细胞球体显示出较高的生存力，这可以通过同时进行电刺激使心脏成熟。从密封的微腔室外部注射了异丙肾上腺素（一种模型的心脏药物），以证明通过快速转移方法进行药物测试的可行性。