Hydrodynamic and label-free sorting of circulating tumor cells from whole blood

Abstract

We demonstrate continuous, passive, and label-free sorting of different in vitro cancer cell lines (MV3, MCF7, and HEPG2) as model systems for circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from undiluted whole blood employing the non-inertial lift effect as driving force. This purely viscous, repulsive cell-wall interaction is sensitive to cell size and deformability differences and yields highly efficient cell separation and high enrichment factors. We show that the performance of the device is robust over a large range of blood cell concentrations and flow rates as well as for the different cell lines. The collected samples usually contain more than 90% of the initially injected CTCs and exhibit average enrichment factors of more than 20 for sorting from whole blood samples.

Viscoelastic microfluidics: progress and challenges

“…However, the prediction that particles always migrate to the channel wall when the blockage ratio exceeds a critical value (β = 0.25 in the work by Huang et al 52 ) differs from experimental results that showed no particle focusing near the wall when β = 0.25 51 . Similarly, particles 139 and cells 149 were found to migrate toward the channel centerline even when β = 0.35. Simulation results by Villone et al 93 suggest that the critical value should be~0.75.…”

“…7c). Simulation results are common compared with experimental observations, and discrepancies can sometimes be noted 51,139,149 . The discrepancies may be attributed to the limited channel length in the experiments and the deformation of the channel cross-section under fluid pressure.…”

New advances in microfluidic flow cytometry

“…Instead, these methods depend on the inherent differences of the samples (e.g., size, shape, compressibility). Samples can be sorted by using inertial force , hydrodynamic spreading , filtration , and deterministic lateral displacement . Passive sorting does not require bulky and costly equipments such as power amplifiers or pressure controllers, which makes them easily integrated into a portable device.…”

Nozzle-free droplet generation with focused acoustic beams for encapsulation of single circulating tumor cells

“…The devices themselves are multifunctional, with great control over droplet ejection frequency and the size of droplet by the precise coupling of acoustic waves. So far, microfluidic devices based on SAWs have proved to be successful in the field of particle separation [13][14][15][16][17] cell isolation [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and manipulation [26][27][28][29][30].…”