Fig. 1

Fluidic flow culture system for analysis of the impact of FSS on the developing placenta. Scheme of the experimental setup illustrates the human placenta, with placental villi bathing in maternal blood flow. The differentiated trophoblast cell line BeWo or human first trimester placental villous explants were cultured under circuit flow in a bioreactor. Downstream analyses after flow culture, including morphological and biomolecular approaches (a). Flow chambers were connected to a tubing system and a reservoir bottle. Flow cycles, including 3 chambers each, were run in a TEB500 flow bioreactor. In parallel, cells were cultured in 6-well dishes under static conditions (b). Before subjecting cells to fluidic flow culture, forskolin-induced differentiation was confirmed by increased secretion of hCG (c). After flow culture, cell viability was determined using a cytotoxicity assay (d). Oxygen measurement in the cell culture media of static (black) and flow treated cells (blue) (e). Data are presented as mean ± SEM and were obtained from three independent experiments using three different cell passages