Fig. 6

Examples of colon cancer-on-chips. a The vascularized micro-tumors (VMTs) are composed of 3 tissue chambers (T1-3), hosting CRC cells, fibroblasts, and endothelial cells. There is also a pressure regulator (PR) to prevent the gel rupture, two loading ports (L1-2), and two medium inlets and outlets (M1-2). The entire structure is bonded onto a bottomless 96-well plate. Reproduced from [172] with permission from The Royal Society of Chemistry. b Schematic representation of the microfluidic device for tumor and fibroblast cells co-culture composed of seven channels: three to host cells and four for the media. Reproduced with permission [177] Copyright 2016, Jeong et al. c The CRC-on-chip (image courtesy of Emulate, Inc.) is composed of two channels: at the top, the epithelial channel (1), hosting epithelial and CRC cells (3); at the bottom, the endothelial channel (2), hosting HUVEC cells (4). The two channels are divided by a porous membrane (5). Reproduced with permission [174]. Copy-right Strelez et al., 2021. d Metastasis-on-a-chip (MOC). To provide an equal flow into all device chambers, the media was perfused from the colorectal compartment and then bifurcated twice to the endothelial (E), lung (Lu), and liver (Li) constructs. Reproduced with permission [135]. Copyright 2019, John Wiley and Sons