National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction (NERC-TRR), Guangzhou 510006, China; School of Material Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction (NERC-TRR), Guangzhou 510006, China; School of Material Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China; School of Biomedical Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Talanta. 2019 May 1;196:546-555. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2018.12.059. Epub 2018 Dec 26.
Cell sorting from heterogeneous organisms and tissues composed of multi-type cells is of great importance in biological and clinical applications. As promising cell sorting methods, dielectrophoresis (DEP) and hydrodynamics are attracting much attention in recent years. In this paper, we report a novel strategy by coupling DEP unit (3D sidewall electrodes) and hydrodynamic unit (microchannels with contraction/expansion structures) together in one microfluidic chip. Depending on the relative positions of 3D sidewall electrodes and contraction/expansion structure, three microchips (full-coupling, semi-coupling and non-coupling) are developed and their cell sorting performance are compared by isolating lung cancer cells (PC-9 cells) from red blood cells (RBCs). Both finite element simulation and practical cell sorting prove that high cell sorting efficiency (recovery of PC-9 cells: 90.21%, recovery of RBCs: 94.35%) can be achieved in full-coupling microchip, mainly owing to the synergistic effects between DEP sorting and hydrodynamic sorting. i.e., the positive DEP force generated by 3D sidewall electrodes can simultaneously act as an additional shear gradient lift force and thus trigger secondary flow even at low flow velocity. Live/dead cell staining, hemolysis ratio, fluorescence images and CCK-8 assay prove that RBCs and PC-9 cells show no significance difference in cell viability before and after cell sorting. The proposed coupling platform for cell sorting brings on a new pathway to construct integrated microfluidic chips for effective cell sorting and separation.
从由多类型细胞组成的异质生物体和组织中进行细胞分选在生物和临床应用中非常重要。作为有前途的细胞分选方法，介电泳（DEP）和流体动力学近年来受到了广泛关注。在本文中，我们报告了一种新策略，即将 DEP 单元（3D 侧壁电极）和流体动力学单元（具有收缩/扩展结构的微通道）结合在一个微流控芯片中。根据 3D 侧壁电极和收缩/扩展结构的相对位置，开发了三种微芯片（全耦合、半耦合和非耦合），并通过从红细胞（RBC）中分离肺癌细胞（PC-9 细胞）来比较它们的细胞分选性能。有限元模拟和实际细胞分选均证明，在全耦合微芯片中可以实现高细胞分选效率（PC-9 细胞的回收率：90.21%，RBC 的回收率：94.35%），这主要归因于 DEP 分选和流体动力学分选之间的协同作用，即 3D 侧壁电极产生的正介电泳力可以同时充当额外的剪切梯度升力，从而即使在低流速下也能引发二次流。活/死细胞染色、溶血率、荧光图像和 CCK-8 测定证明，RBC 和 PC-9 细胞在细胞分选前后的细胞活力无显著差异。用于细胞分选的这种耦合平台为构建用于有效细胞分选和分离的集成微流控芯片带来了新途径。
