Thermally Assisted Acoustofluidic Separation Based on Membrane Protein Content.

Area of Science:

• Biophysics
• Biochemistry
• Materials Science

Background:

• Extracellular vesicles exhibit altered protein expression in various conditions.
• A simple method for sorting vesicles by protein content is needed.
• Current methods lack simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a nonaffinity-based, rapid, and inexpensive method for isolating lipid vesicles.
• To leverage acoustic properties for vesicle separation based on membrane protein content.
• To demonstrate the method's applicability to biological samples.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a thermally modulated acoustofluidic device.
• Exploited composition-specific thermophysical and acoustic property changes of vesicles.
• Separated vesicles based on acoustic contrast temperature (TΦ) and protein molar content.
• Tested with phosphatidylcholine vesicles and sheep red blood cells.

Main Results:

• Vesicle membrane protein content induced conformational changes affecting acoustic properties.
• Successful separation of vesicles with different protein molar contents.
• Achieved a separation efficiency as high as 97%.
• Demonstrated applicability to biological samples like red blood cells.

Conclusions:

• The developed acoustofluidic method enables efficient isolation of vesicles based on membrane protein content.
• This technique offers a promising tool for biomedical and bioanalytical research.
• The method's cost-effectiveness and simplicity enhance its potential applications.