NutriChip: A technological platform for nutrition analysis to promote healthy food
Project Leader: Martinus Gijs of EPFL/LMS2 +41 21 693 67 34
Sandro Carrara of EPFL/LSI, expert in biomedical circuits and systems
Richard Hurrell
of ETHZ/DAGRL/ILW, expert in food science and human nutrition
Jeremy Ramsden of UniBasel/CollegiumBasilea, expert in Nano/microtechnologiesandbioinformatics
Guy Vergères of AgroscopeLiebefeld-Posieux, expert in Nutrigenomics-Dairytechnology
The gastrointestinal tract plays a key role in the adsorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of nutrients, xenobiotics (drugs, toxins) as well as other molecules originating from commensal and pathogenic microorganisms. The intestinal epithelium is a tight gatekeeper controlling the uptake of nutrients and potentially harmful substances and the immune cell layer underlying the epithelial barrier is devoted to avoiding undesired reactivity to dietary proteins and enteric flora, while responding rapidly to pathogens threats. In light of the importance of gastrointestinal immuno-modulation, laboratory models have been developed, in particular, cell culture in vitro models involving a confluent layer of epithelial cells and a co-culture of immune cells separated by a permeable synthetic membrane. These models allow the activation of immune cells in response to the transfer and processing of molecules across the epithelial cell layer, and can potentially be used to screen food for specific physiological properties of nutrients. The classical cell culture design suffers, however, from a lack of efficiency when it comes to using such systems in a high throughput modus. It is therefore highly desirable to downscale such cell cultures and to make them more amenable to automation in order to promote efficient in vitro screening of the physiological properties of selected foods.
This is the major motivation of this project, focused on the development of an integrated lab-on-a-chip platform to investigate the effects of food ingestion by humans. The core of the system is an integrated chip, the NutriChip, which, as a demonstrator of an artificial and miniaturized gastrointestinal tract, will be able to probe the health potential of dairy food samples, using a minimal biomarker set identified through in vivo and in vitro studies. The project will develop innovative CMOS circuits at the nano-scale for high signal-to-noise ratio optical detection and propose a special microfluidic system closely integrating cell-based materials within the chip.
The NutriChip will be tested for screening and selection of dairy products with specific health-promoting properties, in particular immunomodulatory properties. The CMOS detection chip will be used to image down to single immune cells. For the biochemical validation of the NutriChip platform, the response of the immune cells upon the application of food will be examined by monitoring the Toll-like receptors 2 and 4, key molecules bridging metabolism and immuno-regulation in nutrition.
Gastrointestinal Tract on a chip Hamideh Jafarpoorchekab, Qasem Ramadan, Paolo Silacci, Sandro Carrara, Guy Vergères, Jeremy Ramsden, Martin Gijs
NutriChip-A technological platform for nutrition analysis to promote healthy food Flurina Schwander, Katrin Bolanz, Reto Portmann,Charlotte Egger, Paolo Silacci, Linda Corbino-Giunta, Barbara Walther, Richard Hurrell, Jeremy Ramsden, Caroline Buri, Kurt Laederach, Magali Chollet, Qasem Alramadan, Hamideh Jafarpoorchekab, Sandro Carrara, Julien Ghaye, Madhura Avinash Kamat, Gö Kö, Guy Vergès, Martin Gijs
The gastrointestinal tract plays a key role in the adsorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of nutrients, xenobiotics (drugs, toxins) as well as other molecules originating from commensal and pathogenic microorganisms. The intestinal epithelium is a tight gatekeeper controlling the uptake of nutrients and potentially harmful substances and the immune cell layer underlying the epithelial barrier is devoted to avoiding undesired reactivity to dietary proteins and enteric flora, while responding rapidly to pathogens threats. In light of the importance of gastrointestinal immuno-modulation, laboratory models have been developed, in particular, cell culture in vitro models involving a confluent layer of epithelial cells and a co-culture of immune cells separated by a permeable synthetic membrane. These models allow the activation of immune cells in response to the transfer and processing of molecules across the epithelial cell layer, and can potentially be used to screen food for specific physiological properties of nutrients. The classical cell culture design suffers, however, from a lack of efficiency when it comes to using such systems in a high throughput modus. It is therefore highly desirable to downscale such cell cultures and to make them more amenable to automation in order to promote efficient in vitro screening of the physiological properties of selected foods.
