Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Miami, USA.
Department Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA.
J Biomech. 2019 Mar 6;85:43-49. doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2019.01.010. Epub 2019 Jan 11.
Analysis of rare cells in heterogenous mixtures is proven to be beneficial for regenerative medicine, cancer treatment and prenatal diagnostics. Scarcity of these cells, however, makes the isolation process extremely challenging. Efficiency in cell isolation is still low and therefore, novel cell isolation strategies with new biomarkers need exploration. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of using the mechanical stiffness difference to detect and isolate the rare cells from the surrounding cells without labelling them. Fluid and solid mechanics simulations have shown that cell isolation can be performed at high efficiency using stiffness-based isolation. Accuracy of the numerical simulations is established using microfluidic flow chamber experiments.
分析异质混合物中的稀有细胞被证明对再生医学、癌症治疗和产前诊断有益。然而，这些细胞的稀缺性使得分离过程极具挑战性。细胞分离的效率仍然很低，因此需要探索具有新生物标志物的新型细胞分离策略。在这项研究中，我们研究了使用机械硬度差异来检测和分离稀有细胞而无需对其进行标记的可行性。流体和固体力学模拟表明，使用基于硬度的分离可以高效地进行细胞分离。通过微流控流动室实验建立了数值模拟的准确性。
