Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Lab Chip. 2011 Nov 7;11(21):3656-62. doi: 10.1039/c1lc20653b. Epub 2011 Sep 14.
Sorting (or isolation) and manipulation of rare cells with high recovery rate and purity are of critical importance to a wide range of physiological applications. In the current paper, we report on a generic single cell manipulation tool that integrates optical tweezers and microfluidic chip technologies for handling small cell population sorting with high accuracy. The laminar flow nature of microfluidics enables the targeted cells to be focused on a desired area for cell isolation. To recognize the target cells, we develop an image processing methodology with a recognition capability of multiple features, e.g., cell size and fluorescence label. The target cells can be moved precisely by optical tweezers to the desired destination in a noninvasive manner. The unique advantages of this sorter are its high recovery rate and purity in small cell population sorting. The design is based on dynamic fluid and dynamic light pattern, in which single as well as multiple laser traps are employed for cell transportation, and a recognition capability of multiple cell features. Experiments of sorting yeast cells and human embryonic stem cells are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed cell sorting approach.
对广泛的生理应用而言，以高回收率和纯度对稀有细胞进行分选（或分离）和操作至关重要。在当前的论文中，我们报告了一种通用的单细胞操作工具，该工具集成了光学镊子和微流控芯片技术，可高精度处理小细胞群体的分选。微流控的层流性质可将目标细胞聚焦在所需的区域以进行细胞分离。为了识别目标细胞，我们开发了一种图像处理方法，该方法具有识别多个特征（例如细胞大小和荧光标记）的能力。可以通过光学镊子将目标细胞以非侵入性的方式精确地移动到所需的目的地。这种分选器的独特优势在于其在小细胞群体分选时具有高回收率和纯度。该设计基于动态流体和动态光图案，其中使用单个和多个激光阱进行细胞运输，并具有多个细胞特征的识别能力。进行了酵母细胞和人胚胎干细胞的分选实验，以证明所提出的细胞分选方法的有效性。
