Department of Anaesthesiology, University Hospital RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
DWI - Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, Aachen, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2018 May 23;8(1):8031. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-25977-6.
Extracorporeal lung assist technology is one of the last options in critical care medicine to treat patients suffering from severe oxygenation and decarboxylation disorders. Platelet activation along with the consequent thrombus formation is a potentially life-threatening complication of this technique. To avoid platelet-dependent clot formation, this study aims at developing a microfluidic cell sorting chip that can bypass platelets prior to the membrane oxygenator of the extracorporeal lung assist device. The cell sorting chips were produced by maskless dip-in laser lithography, followed by soft lithography replication using PDMS. Citrated porcine whole blood with a clinically relevant haematocrit of 17% was used for the cell sorting experiments involving three different blood flow rates. The joint effects of flow focusing and hydrodynamic lifting forces within the cell sorting chip resulted in a reduction of up to 57% of the baseline platelet count. This cell sorting strategy is suitable for the continuous and label-free separation of red blood cells and platelets and is potentially applicable for increasing the biocompatibility and lifetime of current extracorporeal lung assist devices.
体外肺辅助技术是危重病医学中治疗严重氧合和脱羧障碍患者的最后手段之一。血小板激活以及随之而来的血栓形成是该技术潜在的危及生命的并发症。为了避免血小板依赖性的血栓形成，本研究旨在开发一种微流控细胞分选芯片，该芯片可以在体外肺辅助设备的膜式氧合器之前绕过血小板。通过无掩模浸入式激光光刻和随后使用 PDMS 进行软光刻复制来制造细胞分选芯片。使用临床相关的血细胞比容为 17%的柠檬酸化猪全血进行涉及三种不同血流速度的细胞分选实验。在细胞分选芯片中，流聚焦和流体提升力的共同作用导致血小板计数基线降低了高达 57%。这种细胞分选策略适用于连续和无标记的红细胞和血小板分离，并且有可能提高当前体外肺辅助设备的生物相容性和使用寿命。
