摘要：We report the development of a metastasis-on-a-chip platform to model and track hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)-bone metastasis and to analyze the inhibitory effect of an herb-based compound,thymoquinone(TQ),in hindering the migration of liver cancer cells into the bone *** bioreactor consisted of two chambers,one accommodating encapsulated HepG2 cells and one bone-mimetic niche containing hydroxyapatite(HAp).Above these chambers,amicroporous membrane was placed to resemble the vascular barrier,where medium was circulated over the *** was observed that the liver cancer cells proliferated inside the tumor microtissue and disseminated from the HCC chamber to the circulatory flow and eventually entered the bone *** number of metastatic HepG2 cells to the bone compartment was remarkably higher in the presence of HAp in the *** was then used as ametastasis-controlling agent in both free form and encapsulated nanoparticles,to analyze its suppressing effect on HCC *** indicated that the nanoparticle-encapsulated TQ provided a longer period of inhibitory *** summary,HCC-bone metastasis-on-a-chip platform was demonstrated to model certain key aspects of the cancer metastasis process,hence corroborating the potential of enabling investigations on metastasis-associated biology as well as improved anti-metastatic drug screening.