1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for cell culture, more particularly to an apparatus for high-throughput cell culture with mechanical compression stimulation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Examples of conventional bioreactors used for tissue engineering are spinner flask bioreactors, rotating-wall vessels, hollow-fiber bioreactors, perfusion bioreactors, and so forth. Continuously, simultaneously, and equivalently importing a fresh culture medium into a culture vessel and exporting a waste culture medium out of the culture vessel can be regarded as perfusion culture. Consequently, a volume of a culture medium in the aforementioned culture vessel can be maintained constant. Accordingly, a conventional perfusion cell culture system is able to provide a steady and quantifiable culture condition that is favorable for establishing a quantitative link between an extracellular stimulus and a cellular response.
However, the conventional perfusion cell culture system has a large size and a high production cost, is not configured to be easily operated, and is not appropriate for high throughput applications. The disadvantages of the conventional perfusion cell culture system may limit a range of applications of the same.
Furthermore, in order to investigate a relationship between mechanical compression stimulation and cell physiology, a new miniature device that is suitable for perfusion cell culture, that can overcome the aforementioned disadvantages of the conventional perfusion cell culture system, and that is capable of providing mechanical compression stimulation, is required. For example, the new miniature device can be operated to examine how mechanical compression stimulation may influence differentiation of stem cells or tissue growth regarding tissue engineering.