Key Laboratory of Biorheological Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory for Optoelectronic Technology and Systems, Ministry of Education Chongqing University, Chongqing, P. R. China.
Electrophoresis. 2012 Jul;33(13):1980-6. doi: 10.1002/elps.201100579.
A novel cell electrofusion microfluidic chip using discrete coplanar vertical sidewall electrodes has been designed, fabricated, and tested. The device contains a serpentine-shaped microchannel with 22 500 pairs of vertical sidewall microelectrodes patterned on two opposing vertical sidewalls of the microchannel. The adjacent microelectrodes on each sidewall are separated by coplanar SiO(2) -Polysilicon-SiO(2) /silicon. This design of coplanar discrete vertical sidewall electrodes eliminates the "dead area" present in previous designs using continuous three-dimensional (3D) protruding sidewall electrodes, and generates uniform electric field along the height of the microchannel, leading to a lower voltage required for cell fusion compared to designs using 2D thin-film electrodes. This device is tested to fuse NIH3T3 cells under a low voltage (∼9 V). Almost 100% cells are aligned to the edge of the discrete microelectrodes, and cell-cell pairing efficiency reaches 70%. The electrofusion efficiency is above 40% of the total cells loaded into the device, which is much higher than traditional fusion methods and existing microfluidic devices using continuous 3D protruding sidewall microelectrodes.
一种使用离散共面垂直侧壁电极的新型细胞电融合微流控芯片已经被设计、制造和测试。该器件包含一个蛇形微通道，在微通道的两个相对的垂直侧壁上制作了 22500 对垂直侧壁微电极。每个侧壁上相邻的微电极由共面 SiO(2)-多晶硅-SiO(2)/硅隔开。这种共面离散垂直侧壁电极的设计消除了以前使用连续三维（3D）突出侧壁电极的设计中存在的“死区”，并在微通道的高度上产生均匀的电场，与使用 2D 薄膜电极的设计相比，所需的融合电压更低。该器件在低电压（约 9V）下测试融合 NIH3T3 细胞。几乎 100%的细胞被对准到离散微电极的边缘，并且细胞-细胞配对效率达到 70%。电融合效率高于总细胞加载到器件中的 40%，这比传统的融合方法和使用连续 3D 突出侧壁微电极的现有微流控设备高得多。
