Choi Yo-Han, Kim Jeong-Ah, Lee Wonhee
Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Korea.
Department of Physics, KAIST, Daejeon 34141, Korea.
Micromachines (Basel). 2020 Sep 7;11(9):839. doi: 10.3390/mi11090839.
Studies on cell separation with inertial microfluidics are often carried out with solid particles initially. When this condition is applied for actual cell separations, the efficiency typically becomes lower because of the polydispersity and deformability of cells. Therefore, the understanding of deformability-induced lift force is essential to achieve highly efficient cell separation. We investigate the inertial focusing positions of viscous droplets in a triangular channel while varying Re, deformability, and droplet size. With increasing Re and decreasing droplet size, the top focusing position splits and shifts along the sidewalls. The threshold size of the focusing position splitting increases for droplets with larger deformability. The overall path of the focusing position shifts with increasing Re also has a strong dependency on deformability. Consequently, droplets of the same size can have different focusing positions depending on their deformability. The feasibility of deformability-based cell separation is shown by different focusing positions of MCF10a and MCF7 cells.
关于利用惯性微流控技术进行细胞分离的研究通常首先使用固体颗粒开展。当将这种条件应用于实际细胞分离时，由于细胞的多分散性和可变形性，效率通常会变低。因此，理解可变形性引起的升力对于实现高效细胞分离至关重要。我们在改变雷诺数、可变形性和液滴尺寸的同时，研究了三角形通道中粘性液滴的惯性聚焦位置。随着雷诺数的增加和液滴尺寸的减小，顶部聚焦位置会分裂并沿侧壁移动。对于可变形性较大的液滴，聚焦位置分裂的阈值尺寸会增大。聚焦位置随雷诺数增加而移动的总体路径也强烈依赖于可变形性。因此，相同尺寸的液滴可能因其可变形性而具有不同的聚焦位置。MCF10a细胞和MCF7细胞不同的聚焦位置表明了基于可变形性进行细胞分离的可行性。
