Mkit: A cell migration assay based on microfluidic device and smartphone

Abstract

Mobile sensing based on the integration of microfluidic device and smartphone, so-called MS 2 technology, has enabled many applications over recent years, and continues to stimulate growing interest in both research communities and industries. In particular, it has been envisioned that MS 2 technology can be developed for various cell functional assays to enable basic research and clinical applications. Toward this direction, in this paper, we describe the development of a MS 2 -based cell functional assay for testing cell migration (the M kit ). The system is constructed as an integrated test kit, which includes microfluidic chips, a smartphone-based imaging platform, the phone apps for image capturing and data analysis, and a set of reagent and accessories for performing the cell migration assay. We demonstrated that the M kit can effectively measure purified neutrophil and cancer cell chemotaxis. Furthermore, neutrophil chemotaxis can be tested from a drop of whole blood using the M kit with red blood cell (RBC) lysis. The effects of chemoattractant dose and gradient profile on neutrophil chemotaxis were also tested using the M kit . In addition to research applications, we demonstrated the effective use of the M kit for on-site test at the hospital and for testing clinical samples from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patient. Thus, this developed M kit provides an easy and integrated experimental platform for cell migration related research and potential medical diagnostic applications.

Microfluidic Based Optical Microscopes on Chip

“…They validated the system using HIV‐infected and uninfected whole blood samples, obtaining a good agreement with traditional laboratory detection systems . More recently, Yang et al have developed a prototype called M kit , based on a smartphone fluorescence microscope to perform experiments of cell migration and chemotaxis in 3D environments. The platform was validated testing chemotaxis on purified human blood neutrophils that were obtained either directly from cancer cell lines or from blood drops, demonstrating the possibility to use it for on‐site clinical assays.…”

Lab-on-chip technology for chronic disease diagnosis

“…More recently, we developed a smartphone-based system to rapidly provide digitalized test results for neutrophil chemotaxis in a microfluidic device. 58 This system was validated by testing neutrophil chemotaxis to the sputum from COPD patients and on-site tests in the hospital, suggesting the potential of implementing digital and mobile technologies for cell functional-based disease diagnosis.…”

Microfluidic devices for neutrophil chemotaxis studies

“…To further simplify the experimental process and reduce the damage caused to the neutrophils by the purification process, some researchers aim to integrate separating units and chemotaxis study units in the same chip [26,27,48,[84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94]. Therefore, the integrated microfluidic devices for neutrophil chemotaxis analysis directly from whole blood have been becoming a growing trend.…”

“…Compared with the traditional platforms, MS 2 technology provides significant advantages in terms of test speed and control, low cost, ease-of-operation and data management. Recently, Yang et al developed a MS 2 -based cell functional assay for testing cell migration (the Mkit) based on their previous work [26,48] (Fig. 8B).…”

“…In addition, some microfluidic devices [44][45][46], such as bioinspired microfluidic assay (bMFA) [45,46], were developed to study the kinetics of leukocyte adhesion [47]. In the recent years, integration devices [26,27] with the gradual maturity of the gradient generators were fabricated for clinical application [48].…”