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Sheathless inertial cell focusing and sorting with serial reverse wavy channel structures
Yinning Zhou1, Zhichao Ma1, Ye Ai1
1Pillar of Engineering Product Development, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, 487372 Singapore.
Microsystems & Nanoengineering
|May 7, 2019
Summary
This study introduces a novel wavy microfluidic channel for sheathless particle focusing and cell sorting. The design effectively sorts cancer cells from blood based on size, offering high recovery and purity with excellent cell viability.
Area of Science:
- Microfluidics
- Biotechnology
- Cell Sorting
Background:
- Inertial microfluidics offers low-cost, high-throughput microscale manipulation.
- Passive hydrodynamic forces are key to precise particle manipulation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel sheathless inertial microfluidic channel for particle focusing and cell sorting.
- To demonstrate size-based sorting of cancer cells from whole blood.
Main Methods:
- A novel microfluidic channel design with reverse wavy structures was engineered.
- Dean secondary flow and inertial lift forces were utilized for particle focusing.
- Fluorescent microspheres of various sizes were used to study focusing behavior.
Main Results:
- The novel design effectively focused particles as small as 3 μm.
- Sheathless sorting of MCF-7 breast cancer cells from diluted whole blood was demonstrated.
- High recovery (89.72%) and enrichment (5.3% to 68.9%) of cancer cells were achieved with excellent viability.
Conclusions:
- The developed microfluidic device enables efficient, sheathless, size-based cell sorting.
- This technology holds promise for applications in cancer diagnostics and cell analysis.
- Passive hydrodynamic forces in microfluidics provide a powerful tool for biological sample processing.
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