Manipulation of Particle/Cell Based on Compressibility in a Divergent Microchannel by Surface Acoustic Wave

Abstract

The mechanical properties (compressibility or deformability) of cells are closely related to their death, migration, and differentiation. Accurate separation and manipulation of bioparticles based on these mechanical properties are still a challenging in the field of acoustofluidics. In this work, based on surface acoustic waves (SAW) and divergent microchannels, we developed a new method for separating and detecting particles or cells with different compressibility. The difference in acoustic radiation force (F r) caused by compressibility are gradually amplified and accumulated by decreasing the flow velocity, and they are finally reflected in the particle migration distance. During the transverse migration process, the alternating dominance of the acoustic radiation force and the Stokes resistance force (F s) drives the particles to create three typical migration patterns: intermittent migration, compound migration, and near-wall migration. In the present tilted SAW device, a 91% separation success rate of ∼10 μm polystyrene (PS) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) particles can be achieved by optimizing the acoustic field input power and the fluid velocity. The application potential of the present divergent microchannel is validated by separating the myelogenous leukemia cell K562 and the natural killer cell NK92 that have similar densities and sizes (∼15 μm) but different compressibility. The results of this work are expected to provide valuable insights into the acoustofluidics separation and detection of the cells that are with different compressibility.

Acoustic Manipulation of Particles in Microfluidic Chips with an Adaptive Controller that Models Acoustic Fields

“…To compare the AMA controller to the ε-greedy controller from our previous work, [1,9] we performed a manipulation experiment where both controllers were tasked to guide a polystyrene particle (diameter: 70 μm, density: 1.05-1.06 Â g cm À3 ) through a rectangular path, with the controller starting with no knowledge of the acoustic field shapes. Polystyrene microparticles have a positive acoustic contrast factor (Xue et al calculated it as 0.58), [51] so they migrate toward the pressure nodes of the acoustic field. With the AMA controller, we repeated the rectangular path for five consecutive times.…”

High-Density Microporous Drainage-Integrating Sheath Flow Generator for Streamlining Microfluidic Cell Sorting Systems

“…In general, continuous particle/cell sorting techniques using microfluidics exploit differences in particle mobility in the lateral direction in laminar flow systems. Some of these techniques exert physical forces on cells as the driving forces for cell migration, as represented by dielectrophoresis, − acoustophoresis, − magnetophoresis, − and particle inertia raised by the flow, including Dean flow fractionation, inertial sorting, multiorifice fractionation, and centrifugation-assisted methods. , Purely hydrodynamic sorting techniques have also been studied, include pinched flow fractionation (PFF), , deterministic lateral displacement (DLD), , hydrodynamic filtration (HDF), , hydrodynamic migration-based separation, , and lattice-channel-based sorting. − These hydrodynamic mechanisms utilize branching channels or periodically arranged obstacles to selectively separate large and/or less deformable particles from the original flow of the particle suspension. A crucial requirement common to most of these methods for effective particle sorting is the introduction of sheath flow.…”

Atomic spectrometry update: review of advances in atomic spectrometry and related techniques

“…Xu et al 8 developed a microuidic chip system for the immunolabeling, magnetic separation and focusing of HepG2 cells coupled with SC-ICP-MS for quantitative analysis of the asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGPR) on single HepG2 cells. The microuidic chip was fabricated from PDMS using a silicon photoresist template to form the channels and then bonded to a glass backplate.…”