μRespirometer to determine the oxygen consumption rate of mammalian cells in a microfluidic cell culture

We present a novel μrespirometer to determine the oxygen consumption rate (OCR) of mammalian cells. The oxygen concentration is measured with the fluorescent dye PtTFPP in a polystyrene-matrix. This film is integrated into a closed microfluidic chip made out of only oxygen-impermeable materials like glass and silicon. This results in a low drift and thus allows long-term measurements with living mammalian cells. With this chip, we determined the OCR of basophil RS-ATL8 cells as 32 amol/(celhs).