Sheathless Shape-Based Separation of Candida Albicans Using a Viscoelastic Non-Newtonian Fluid

Abstract

Rapid and accurate identification of Candida albicans from among other candida species is critical for cost-effective treatment and antifungal drug assays. Shape is a critical biomarker indicating cell type, cell cycle, and environmental conditions; however, most microfluidic techniques have been focused only on size-based particle/cell manipulation. This study demonstrates a sheathless shape-based separation of particles/cells using a viscoelastic non-Newtonian fluid. The size of C. albicans was measured at 37 °C depending on the incubation time (0 h, 1 h, and 2 h). The effects of flow rates on the flow patterns of candida cells with different shapes were examined. Finally, 2-h-incubated candida cells with germ tube formations (≥26 μm) were separated from spherical candida cells and shorter candida cells with a separation efficiency of 80.9% and a purity of 91.2% at 50 μL/min.

Separation and Enrichment of Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae by Shape Using Viscoelastic Microfluidics

“…Li et al 38 demonstrated the ability of viscoelastic microfluidics to separate normal and multimetric drug-treated human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans by morphol-ogy. Nam et al 39 utilized a viscoelastic fluid for shape-based separation of pathogenic yeast Candida albicans of relatively large size (i.e., up to 32 μm in length). However, it has not been shown whether elasto-inertial effects can be used to separate S. Cerevisiae, an important industrial workhorse and a model organism, based on shape.…”

Characterization and minimization of band broadening in DNA electrohydrodynamic migration for enhanced size separation

“…RNA, or particles. In the latter case, many studies have addressed the physics of particle focusing in Poiseuille flows 40,41 , and recent interest has emerged for microorganism separation 42 , but dispersion remains to be studied and modelled, potentially with the same types of arguments based on the Taylor model.…”

Enhanced Blood Plasma Extraction Utilising Viscoelastic Effects in a Serpentine Microchannel

“…In addition, Lu et al [ 25 , 26 ] experimentally found that particles can be sorted by their shape/morphology in viscoelastic microfluidics [ 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Later, based on the simple shape-dependent migration principle, viscoelastic fluids were adopted to separate abnormal-shaped yeast cells from those that were regular shaped [ 30 ], incubated Candida albicans with germ tube formations from spherical candida cells [ 31 ], and cyanobacterial Anabaena with different rod aspect ratios [ 32 ]. Moreover, Yang et al [ 33 ] demonstrated that elasto-inertial particles can also be sorted by their deformability, successfully isolating rigidified RBCs from fresh RBCs.…”