Microfluidic: An innovative tool for efficient cell sorting

Abstract

At first mostly dedicated to molecular analysis, microfluidic systems are rapidly expanding their range of applications towards cell biology, thanks to their ability to control the mechanical, biological and fluidic environment at the scale of the cells. A number of new concepts based on microfluidics were indeed proposed in the last ten years for cell sorting. For many of these concepts, progress remains to be done regarding automation, standardization, or throughput, but it is now clear that microfluidics will have a major contribution to the field, from fundamental research to point-of-care diagnosis. We present here an overview of cells sorting in microfluidics, with an emphasis on circulating tumor cells. Sorting principles are classified in two main categories, methods based on physical properties of the cells, such as size, deformability, electric or optical properties, and methods based on biomolecular properties, notably specific surface antigens. We document potential applications, discuss the main advantages and limitations of different approaches, and tentatively outline the main remaining challenges in this fast evolving field.

Microfluidic Enrichment of Mouse Epidermal Stem Cells and Validation of Stem Cell Proliferation In Vitro

“…Several approaches can be taken to enhance purity, although such measures may result in lower yield, a typical attribute of most affinity-based continuous flow separation processes. [27][28][29][30][31][32] These steps could include placing additional CD34 capture devices in series and increasing the surface density of CD34 antibody within these devices. Other epidermal Epidermal cells enriched by use of microfluidic devices effectively formed colonies in vitro.…”

Hydrodynamic mechanisms of cell and particle trapping in microfluidics

“…Comprehensive review papers on the focusing and sorting techniques in microfluidics have been authored in recent years which describe the underlying mechanisms and corresponding performance of the aforementioned methods. 13,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] In the current review article, we focus on the basic physics and applications of two families of label-free, passive methods utilized to handle and separate cells and particles by exploiting forces exerted on them due to hydrodynamic effects arising in microfluidic devices. The first approach employs the well-known phenomenon of cross stream migration of suspended particles in confined flows.…”

Magnetophoretic-based microfluidic device for DNA isolation

“…13 Other separation techniques include, but are not limited to biochemical interactions, sheath flow and streamline sorting, dielectrophoresis, fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS), and deterministic lateral displacement. 15,16 The end goal of the microfluidic magnetophoresis separators is to incorporate them into a complete lTAS. 17 Magnetophoretic microfluidic platforms when compared to centralized lab based separation techniques have the potential to increase the ability for point-of-care diagnosis, reduce the required sample size, and provide faster sample processing.…”