Label-free cell separation and sorting in microfluidic systems

By D. Gossett, W. Weaver, A. Mach, S. Hur, H. Tse, Wonhee Lee, Hamed Amini, D. Di Carlo. Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, 2010

944 citations recorded by the source corpus.

AbstractCell separation and sorting are essential steps in cell biology research and in many diagnostic and therapeutic methods. Recently, there has been interest in methods which avoid the use of biochemical labels; numerous intrinsic biomarkers have been explored to identify cells including size, electrical polarizability, and hydrodynamic properties. This review highlights microfluidic techniques used for label-free discrimination and fractionation of cell populations. Microfluidic systems have been adopted to precisely handle single cells and interface with other tools for biochemical analysis. We analyzed many of these techniques, detailing their mode of separation, while concentrating on recent developments and evaluating their prospects for application. Furthermore, this was done from a perspective where inertial effects are considered important and general performance metrics were proposed which would ease comparison of reported technologies. Lastly, we assess the current state of these technologies and suggest directions which may make them more accessible. FigureA wide range of microfluidic technologies have been developed to separate and sort cells by taking advantage of differences in their intrinsic biophysical properties

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/40b5ca98a7a9035af9dbd3375555278e29ab006e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Biomedical Engineering

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Citations in the corpus

Continuous Inertial Focusing and Separation of Particles by Shape (2012, neutral): “[9] D.”
Technologies for Single-Cell Isolation (2015, background): “General cell separation techniques that offer no control at the single-cell level [45] are not within the scope of this section.”
A review of microfabrication techniques and dielectrophoretic microdevices for particle manipulation and separation (2014, methodology): “To date, a variety of technologies have been developed to manipulate and separate particles in an aqueous solution, including mechanical, inertial, hydrodynamic, acoustic, optical, magnetic, and electrical methodologies [5,6,7].”
Recent Advances and Future Perspectives on Microfluidic Liquid Handling (2017, background): “reviewed label-free microfluidic techniques that use the intrinsic properties of the cell, such as its size and other physical signatures [13].”