Affiliations: [a] Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel | [b] Department of Physical Electronics, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel | [c] Department of Neurobiology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel | [d] Department of Otorhinolaryngology, The Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel | [e] Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
Correspondence:
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Address for correspondence: Nurit Even-Tzur, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. Tel.: +972 3 640 8956; Fax: +972 3 640 5843; E-mail: nuritet@eng.tau.ac.il.
Abstract: Climate chambers have been widely used in in vitro and in vivo studies which require controlled environmental temperature and humidity conditions. This article describes a new desktop climate chamber that was developed for application of respiratory airflows on cultured nasal epithelial cells (NEC) under controlled temperature and humidity conditions. Flow experiments were performed by connecting the climate chamber to an airflow generator via a flow chamber with cultured NEC. Experiments at two controlled climate conditions, 25°C and 40% relative humidity (RH) and 37°C and 80%RH, were conducted to study mucin secretion from the cultures inresponse to the flow. The new climate chamber is a relatively simple and inexpensive apparatus which can easily be connected to any flow system for climate controlled flow experiments. This chamber can be easily adjusted to various in vitro experiments, as well as to clinical studies with animals or human subjects which require controlled climate conditions.
