Continuous-flow microfluidic blood cell sorting for unprocessed whole blood using surface-micromachined...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Microfluidics
• Immunology

Background:

• White blood cells (WBCs) are crucial for immune response but constitute only 0.1% of blood cells.
• Efficient isolation of WBCs from unprocessed whole blood is essential for integrated immunoassay platforms.
• Existing microfluidic techniques struggle with high throughput and purity for whole blood processing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a microfluidic chip for continuous-flow isolation and sorting of WBCs from whole blood.
• To achieve high throughput and separation efficiency in WBC isolation for blood-on-a-chip systems.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a crossflow filtration scheme integrated with a porous poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) microfiltration membrane (PMM).
• Employed a microfluidic cell sorting chip designed for continuous-flow operation.
• Tested with whole blood samples at a throughput of 1 mL/h.

Main Results:

• Achieved a WBC recovery rate of 27.4 ± 4.9%.
• Obtained a high WBC purity of 93.5 ± 0.5%.
• Demonstrated high throughput and efficient separation of WBCs from whole blood.

Conclusions:

• The developed microfluidic cell sorting chip offers efficient, high-throughput isolation of WBCs from whole blood.
• The system's ease of sample recovery and continuous-flow operation make it suitable for integrated blood-on-a-chip systems.
• This technology holds significant promise for upstream blood sample preparation and analysis in point-of-care diagnostics.