Microfluidic devices for size-dependent separation of liver cells

Abstract

Liver is composed of various kinds of cells, including hepatic parenchymal cells (hepatocytes) and nonparenchymal cells, and separation of these cells is essential for cellular therapies and pharmacological and metabolic studies. Here, we present microfluidic devices for purely hydrodynamic and size-dependent separation of liver cells, which utilize hydrodynamic filtration. By continuously introducing cell suspension into a microchannel with multiple side-branch channels, cells smaller than a specific size are removed from the mainstream, while large cells are focused onto a sidewall in the microchannel and then separated into two or three groups. Two types of PDMS-glass hybrid microdevices were fabricated, and rat liver cells were successfully separated. Also, cell size, morphology, viability and several cell functions were analyzed, and the separation performances of the microfluidic devices were compared to that of a conventional centrifugal technique. The results showed that the presented microfluidic devices are low-cost and suitable for clinical use, and capable of highly functional separation with relatively high-speed processing.

On the role of the actin cytoskeleton and nucleus in the biomechanical response of spread cells

“…Anderson and Knothe Tate [44] report that such a stress state will result in stem cells differentiation towards an endothelial lineage. The characterisation of nucleus behaviour presented in the current study may aid the development and calibration of microfluidic devices for cell sorting [45] and direct cytosolic delivery of transcription factors [46].…”

Separation of micro-particles utilizing spatial difference of optically induced dielectrophoretic forces

“…Cells and particles in biosamples can be separated according to their size differences (Vulto et al 2006;Zhang et al 2006), electrical properties (Iliescu et al 2007;Ohta et al 2007a) and other physical properties. Several mechanisms such as electrical (electrophoresis or dielectrophoresis) (Choi and Park 2005;Voldman 2006), magnetic (Choi et al 2000;Berger et al 2001;Lien et al 2008) and hydrodynamic forces (Yamada et al 2007;Choi et al 2007) have been widely explored for the purpose of particle/bead/cell separation. For instance, hydrodynamic filtration has been presented as size-dependent separator.…”

“…Multiple side-branch channels are employed to continuously sort particles suspension in the main channel according to their difference in size. Particles smaller than a specific size were removed from the mainstream while larger particles are still focused onto a sidewall in the microchannel (Yamada et al 2007). These hydrodynamic systems usually require stable flows to maintain high separation efficiency.…”

Size-dependent separation of polydisperse samples in a tapered microfluidic device

“…Passive separation techniques work using fluid manipulation or particle interaction for example field flow fractionation (FFF) [6], [7], filtration [8], hydrodynamic [9]- [11] and sedimentation [12]. It serves as the most fundamental approach and broadly investigated.…”