Multi-Organ Chip: Liver First-Pass Cascade

Dose & Perfusion

Bolus dose 100 nmol

Perfusion flow Q 2.0 µL/min

Liver Enzyme Kinetics

V_max (metabolic capacity) 20 nmol/min

K_m (Michaelis constant) 10 µM

Live Readouts

Liver chamber C_L

0.0 µM

Target chamber C_T

0.0 µM

Bioavailability F

0.0%

Elapsed (sim)

0.0 min

How it works

Two microfluidic chambers — a hepatocyte (liver) chamber and a downstream target-organ chamber — are perfused in series at flow rate Q and modelled as well-mixed continuously-stirred tanks (the standard lumped-parameter model for organ-on-chip mass transport):

dC_L/dt = [ -Q·C_L - Vmax·C_L/(Km+C_L) ] / V_L
dC_T/dt = [ Q·(C_L - C_T) ] / V_T

The liver term Vmax·C/(Km+C) is Michaelis–Menten saturable enzyme kinetics: at low concentration clearance is roughly first-order (proportional to C), but once C approaches K_m the metabolizing enzymes saturate and the elimination rate plateaus near V_max, exactly as CYP450 hepatic metabolism behaves in real liver-chip assays.

Inject Bolus Dose — instantly adds Dose/V_L to the liver chamber concentration, mimicking a drug loaded at the chip's inlet port.
Flow rate Q — sets perfusion speed; higher Q sweeps drug through the liver chamber faster, giving the enzymes less contact time and raising the fraction that escapes metabolism (lower hepatic extraction).
V_max / K_m — the liver chamber's metabolic capacity and substrate affinity; raising V_max or lowering K_m increases hepatic clearance.
Bioavailability F — the cumulative mass that has flowed out of the target chamber, as a fraction of the total dose injected: F = 1 − ER, where ER is the hepatic extraction ratio. This is the same first-pass-metabolism figure measured with linked liver/target organ-chip systems (e.g. Emulate, CN Bio) used to predict systemic drug exposure before animal or human trials.

Liver chamber (metabolism) Target-organ chamber Drug tracer flow

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