The Optimization of a Microfluidic CTC Filtering Chip by Simulation

Abstract

The detection and separation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are crucial in early cancer diagnosis and cancer prognosis. Filtration through a thin film is one of the size and deformability based separation methods, which can isolate rare CTCs from the peripheral blood of cancer patients regardless of their heterogeneity. In this paper, volume of fluid (VOF) multiphase flow models are employed to clarify the cells’ filtering processes. The cells may deform significantly when they enter a channel constriction, which will induce cell membrane stress and damage if the area strain is larger than the critical value. Therefore, the cellular damage criterion characterized by membrane area strain is presented in our model, i.e., the lysis limit of the lipid bilayer is taken as the critical area strain. Under this criterion, we discover that the microfilters with slit-shaped pores do less damage to cells than those with circular pores. The influence of contact angle between the microfilters and blood cells on cellular injury is also discussed. Moreover, the optimal film thickness and flux in our simulations are obtained as 0.5 μm and 0.375 mm/s, respectively. These findings will provide constructive guidance for the improvement of next generation microfilters with higher throughput and less cellular damage.

Simulation, Fabrication and Analysis of Silver Based Ascending Sinusoidal Microchannel (ASMC) for Implant of Varicose Veins

“…Alshare et al (2016) analyzed heat transfer and gaseous flow in sinusoidal microchannels with the help of computational modeling [ 43 ]. Many researchers have performed investigation on microneedles, micropumps, microchambers, microsensors, and micromixers, for biomedical and other applications [ 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ].…”

The Continuous Concentration of Particles and Cancer Cell Line Using Cell Margination in a Groove-Based Channel

“…Hydrodynamics, a passive method, can separate cancer cells in a label-free manner with a simple setup. Separating by size via filtration [ 9 , 10 , 11 ] and inertial microfluidics [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ] is considered to be a powerful and promising technique for enriching cancer cells due to the high recovery yield and throughput. Filtration is currently challenged as the filter microstructures become clogged after processing a lot of cells; furthermore, captured cells are released based on a reverse flow; this means that the throughput of the filtration approach is limited by clogging and having to operate in batches.…”

Multidisciplinary Role of Microfluidics for Biomedical and Diagnostic Applications: Biomedical Microfluidic Devices

“…This special issue of Micromachines entitled ‘Biomedical Microfluidic Devices’ provides a discussion of the technical challenges associated with developing microfluidic devices for biomedical and diagnostic applications. Addressing these challenges requires technological advances in many areas, including sensors [ 1 , 2 ], actuators [ 3 ], materials [ 4 , 5 ], microfabrication techniques [ 6 ], simulations and models [ 7 , 8 , 9 ], and platform technologies [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. This special issue consists of 12 high-quality papers, including two insightful review articles [ 4 , 12 ].…”

“…For example, Azzopardi et al [ 7 ] improved the uniformity of flow across a large-area resonant biosensor by using COMSOL multiphysics. By using ANSYS Fluent, Li et al [ 8 ] optimized microfluidic microfilters of circulating tumor cells to achieve higher throughput, less cellular damage, and better efficiency. In addition, Mizoue et al [ 9 ] proposed an analytical model to achieve fast and accurate cell manipulation in a deformable PDMS-based microfluidic device, by studying its second-order transfer function of macro-to-micro manipulation (or input-to-output relationship).…”

“…For example, Tsai’s group [ 10 , 11 ] developed a pressure-driven microfluidic constriction platform to evaluate on-chip red blood cell deformability. In general, according to a distinct set of fluidic manipulation processes, biomedical microfluidic devices can be categorized into different microfluidic platforms, for example, capillary-driven, pressure-driven [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ], vacuum-driven, electrowetting-driven, centrifugal-driven [ 3 ], droplet-based [ 4 ], and paper-based microfluidic platforms, among others. An article by Basha et al [ 12 ] provides a comprehensive review of the core processes implemented in POC devices (e.g., lysis techniques, nucleic acid extraction, amplification of specific DNA/RNA, and genomic identification methods) and microfluidic platforms suitable for molecular diagnosis (e.g., paper-based, centrifugal-based, and electrowetting-based microfluidic platforms).…”