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Updated: Feb 8, 2026

Analysis of Shear Flow-induced Migration of Murine Marginal Zone B Cells In Vitro
Published on: November 26, 2018
Isolation of cells from whole blood using shear-induced diffusion
Jian Zhou1,2,3, Chunlong Tu4,5, Yitao Liang4,5
1Biosensor National Special Laboratory, Key Laboratory of BME of the Ministry of Education, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China. zhouja@zju.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Extraction of cells of interest directly from whole blood is in high demand, yet extraordinary challenging due to the complex hemodynamics and hemorheology of the sample. Herein, we describe a new microfluidic platform that exploits the intrinsic complex properties of blood for continuous size-selective focusing and separation of cells directly from unprocessed whole blood. The novel system only requires routinely accessible saline solution to form a sandwiched fluid configuration and to initiate a strong effect of shear-induced diffusion of cells, which is coupled with fluid inertia for effective separation. Separations of beads and cells from whole blood have been successfully demonstrated with high efficiency (89.8%) at throughput of 6.75 mL/hr (106-107 cells/s) of whole blood. Rapid isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from peripheral blood sample of hepatocarcinoma patients is also shown as a proof of principle.
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