Microfluidic Buffer Exchange for Interference-free Micro/Nanoparticle Cell Engineering

Engineering cells with active-ingredient-loaded micro/nanoparticles (NPs) is becoming an increasingly popular method to enhance native therapeutic ...

Nanyang Technological University

The need for efficient cell separation, an essential preparatory step in many biological and medical assays, has led to the recent development of numerous microscale separation techniques. This review describes the current state-of-the-art in microfluidics-based cell separation techniques. Microfluidics-based sorting offers numerous advantages, including reducing sample volumes, faster sample processing, high sensitivity and spatial resolution, low device cost, and increased portability. The techniques presented are broadly classified as being active or passive depending on the operating principles. The various separation principles are explained in detail along with popular examples demonstrating their application toward cell separation. Common separation metrics, including separation markers, resolution, efficiency, and throughput, of these techniques are discussed. Developing efficient microscale separation methods that offering greater control over cell population distribution will be important in realizing true point-of-care (POC) lab-on-a-chip (LOC) systems.

Microfluidics for cell separation.

In blood vessels with luminal diameter less than 300 µm, red blood cells (RBCs) which are smaller in size and more deformable than leukocytes, migrate to the axial centre of the vessel due to flow velocity gradient within the vessels. This phenomenon displaces the leukocytes to the vessel wall and is aptly termed as margination. Here, we demonstrate using microfluidics that stiffer malaria-infected RBCs (iRBCs) behave similar to leukocytes and undergo margination towards the sidewalls. This provides better understanding of the hemodynamic effects of iRBCs in microcirculation and its contribution to pathophysiological outcome relating to cytoadherence to endothelium. In this work, cell margination is mimicked for the separation of iRBCs from whole blood based on their reduced deformability. The malaria infected sample was tested in a simple long straight channel microfluidic device fabricated in polydimethylsiloxane. In this microchannel, cell margination was directed along the channel width with the iRBCs aligning near each sidewall and then subsequently removed using a 3-outlet system, thus achieving separation. Tests were conducted using ring stage and late trophozoite/schizont stage iRBCs. Device performance was quantified by analyzing the distribution of these iRBCs across the microchannel width at the outlet and also conducting flow cytometry analysis. Results indicate recovery of approximately 75% for early stage iRBCs and >90% for late stage iRBCs at the side outlets. The simple and passive system operation makes this technique ideal for on-site iRBCs enrichment in resource-limited settings, and can be applied to other blood cell diseases, e.g. sickle cell anemia and leukemia, characterized by changes in cell stiffness.

Deformability based cell margination--a simple microfluidic design for malaria-infected erythrocyte separation.

Blood is a highly complex bio-fluid with cellular components making up >40% of the total volume, thus making its analysis challenging and time-consuming. In this work, we introduce a high-throughput size-based separation method for processing diluted blood using inertial microfluidics. The technique takes advantage of the preferential cell focusing in high aspect-ratio microchannels coupled with pinched flow dynamics for isolating low abundance cells from blood. As an application of the developed technique, we demonstrate the isolation of cancer cells (circulating tumor cells (CTCs)) spiked in blood by exploiting the difference in size between CTCs and hematologic cells. The microchannel dimensions and processing parameters were optimized to enable high throughput and high resolution separation, comparable to existing CTC isolation technologies. Results from experiments conducted with MCF-7 cells spiked into whole blood indicate >80% cell recovery with an impressive 3.25 × 10(5) fold enrichment over red blood cells (RBCs) and 1.2 × 10(4) fold enrichment over peripheral blood leukocytes (PBL). In spite of a 20× sample dilution, the fast operating flow rate allows the processing of ∼10(8) cells min(-1) through a single microfluidic device. The device design can be easily customized for isolating other rare cells from blood including peripheral blood leukocytes and fetal nucleated red blood cells by simply varying the 'pinching' width. The advantage of simple label-free separation, combined with the ability to retrieve viable cells post enrichment and minimal sample pre-processing presents numerous applications for use in clinical diagnosis and conducting fundamental studies.

Pinched flow coupled shear-modulated inertial microfluidics for high-throughput rare blood cell separation.

The electronic properties of graphene are strongly influenced by electrostatic forces arising from long-range charge scatterers and by changes in the local dielectric environment. This makes graphene extremely sensitive to the surface charge density of cells interfacing with it. Here, we developed a graphene transistor array integrated with microfluidic flow cytometry for the "flow-catch-release" sensing of malaria-infected red blood cells at the single-cell level. Malaria-infected red blood cells induce highly sensitive capacitively coupled changes in the conductivity of graphene. Together with the characteristic conductance dwell times, specific microscopic information about the disease state can be obtained.

Flow sensing of single cell by graphene transistor in a microfluidic channel.

Sepsis is an adverse systemic inflammatory response caused by microbial infection in blood. This paper reports a simple microfluidic approach for intrinsic, non-specific removal of both microbes and inflammatory cellular components (platelets and leukocytes) from whole blood, inspired by the invivo phenomenon of leukocyte margination. As blood flows through a narrow microchannel (20 × 20 µm), deformable red blood cells (RBCs) migrate axially to the channel centre, resulting in margination of other cell types (bacteria, platelets, and leukocytes) towards the channel sides. By using a simple cascaded channel design, the blood samples undergo a 2-stage bacteria removal in a single pass through the device, thereby allowing higher bacterial removal efficiency. As an application for sepsis treatment, we demonstrated separation of Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae spiked into whole blood, achieving high removal efficiencies of ∼80% and ∼90%, respectively. Inflammatory cellular components were also depleted by >80% in the filtered blood samples which could help to modulate the host inflammatory response and potentially serve as a blood cleansing method for sepsis treatment. The developed technique offers significant advantages including high throughput (∼1 ml/h per channel) and label-free separation which allows non-specific removal of any blood-borne pathogens (bacteria and fungi). The continuous processing and collection mode could potentially enable the return of filtered blood back to the patient directly, similar to a simple and complete dialysis circuit setup. Lastly, we designed and tested a larger filtration device consisting of 6 channels in parallel (∼6 ml/h) and obtained similar filtration performances. Further multiplexing is possible by increasing channel parallelization or device stacking to achieve higher throughput comparable to convectional blood dialysis systems used in clinical settings.

A microfluidics approach towards high-throughput pathogen removal from blood using margination.

Inertial microfluidics has recently drawn wide attention as an efficient, high-throughput microfluidic cell separation method. However, the achieved separation resolution and throughput, as well as the issues with cell dispersion due to cell-cell interaction, have appeared to be limiting factors in the application of the technique to real-world samples such as blood and other biological fluids. In this paper, we present a novel design of a spiral inertial microfluidic (trapezoidal cross-section) sorter with enhanced separation resolution and demonstrate its ability in separating/recovering polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) and mononuclear leukocytes (MNLs) from diluted human blood (1-2% hematocrit) with high efficiency (>80%). PMNs enriched by our method also showed negligible activation as compared to original input sample, while the conventional red blood cell (RBC) lysis method clearly induced artificial activation of the sensitive PMNs. Therefore, our proposed technique would be a promising alternative to enrich/separate sensitive blood cells for therapeutic or diagnostic applications.

Separation of leukocytes from blood using spiral channel with trapezoid cross-section.

Presence and frequency of rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in bloodstreams of cancer patients are pivotal to early cancer detection and treatment monitoring. Here, we use a spiral microchannel with inherent centrifugal forces for continuous, size-based separation of CTCs from blood (Dean Flow Fractionation (DFF)) which facilitates easy coupling with conventional downstream biological assays. Device performance was optimized using cancer cell lines (> 85% recovery), followed by clinical validation with positive CTCs enumeration in all samples from patients with metastatic lung cancer (n = 20; 5-88 CTCs per mL). The presence of CD133⁺ cells, a phenotypic marker characteristic of stem-like behavior in lung cancer cells was also identified in the isolated subpopulation of CTCs. The spiral biochip identifies and addresses key challenges of the next generation CTCs isolation assay including antibody independent isolation, high sensitivity and throughput (3 mL/hr); and single-step retrieval of viable CTCs.

Isolation and retrieval of circulating tumor cells using centrifugal forces.

In this study, the effects of prolonged storage on several biophysical properties of red blood cells (RBCs) were investigated. Single cell deformability was used as an important criterion in determining subgroups of RBCs evolved during storage lesion. A deformability-based microfluidic cell sorting technology was applied, which demonstrates the ability to enrich and separate the less deformable subpopulations of stored blood. These less deformable RBC subpopulations were then associated with other important markers such as osmotic fragility indicating cell integrity as well as microparticle content. This work demonstrates a systematic methodology to both monitor and improve banked blood quality, thereby reducing risks related to blood transfusion.

Towards microfluidic-based depletion of stiff and fragile human red cells that accumulate during blood storage.

Detection of bacteria in bloodstream infections and their antibiotic susceptibility patterns is critical to guide therapeutic decision-making for optimal patient care. Current culture-based assays are too slow (>48 h), leading to excessive up-front use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and/or incorrect antibiotic choices due to resistant bacteria, each with deleterious consequences for patient care and public health. To approach this problem, we describe a method to rapidly isolate bacteria from whole blood using inertial microfluidics and directly determine pathogen identity and antibiotic susceptibility with hybridization-based RNA detection. Using the principle of Dean flow fractionation, bacteria are separated from host blood cells in a label-free separation method with efficient recovery of even low abundance bacteria. Ribosomal RNA detection can then be applied for direct identification of low abundance pathogens (~100 per mL) from blood without culturing or enzymatic amplification. Messenger RNA detection of antibiotic-responsive transcripts after brief drug exposure permits rapid susceptibility determination from bacteria with minimal culturing (~10(5) per mL). This unique coupling of microfluidic cell separation with RNA-based molecular detection techniques represents significant progress towards faster diagnostics (~8 hours) to guide antibiotic therapy.

Direct detection and drug-resistance profiling of bacteremias using inertial microfluidics.

Despite significant advancements over the years, there remains an urgent need for low cost diagnostic approaches that allow for rapid, reliable and sensitive detection of malaria parasites in clinical samples. Our previous work has shown that magnetic resonance relaxometry (MRR) is a potentially highly sensitive tool for malaria diagnosis. A key challenge for making MRR based malaria diagnostics suitable for clinical testing is the fact that MRR baseline fluctuation exists between individuals, making it difficult to detect low level parasitemia. To overcome this problem, it is important to establish the MRR baseline of each individual while having the ability to reliably determine any changes that are caused by the infection of malaria parasite. Here we show that an approach that combines the use of microfluidic cell enrichment with a saponin lysis before MRR detection can overcome these challenges and provide the basis for a highly sensitive and reliable diagnostic approach of malaria parasites. Importantly, as little as 0.0005% of ring stage parasites can be detected reliably, making this ideally suited for the detection of malaria parasites in peripheral blood obtained from patients. The approaches used here are envisaged to provide a new malaria diagnosis solution in the near future.

Enhancing malaria diagnosis through microfluidic cell enrichment and magnetic resonance relaxometry detection.

Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasites invade and remodel human red blood cells (RBCs) by trafficking parasite-synthesized proteins to the RBC surface. While these proteins mediate interactions with host cells that contribute to disease pathogenesis, the infected RBC surface proteome remains poorly characterized. Here we use a novel strategy (I-SELEX) to discover high affinity aptamers that selectively recognize distinct epitopes uniquely present on parasite-infected RBCs. Based on inertial focusing in spiral microfluidic channels, I-SELEX enables stringent partitioning of cells (efficiency ≥ 10(6)) from unbound oligonucleotides at high volume throughput (~2 × 10(6) cells min(-1)). Using an RBC model displaying a single, non-native antigen and live malaria parasite-infected RBCs as targets, we establish suitability of this strategy for de novo aptamer selections. We demonstrate recovery of a diverse set of aptamers that recognize distinct, surface-displayed epitopes on parasite-infected RBCs with nanomolar affinity, including an aptamer against the protein responsible for placental sequestration, var2CSA. These findings validate I-SELEX as a broadly applicable aptamer discovery platform that enables identification of new reagents for mapping the parasite-infected RBC surface proteome at higher molecular resolution to potentially contribute to malaria diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccine efforts.

Identification of malaria parasite-infected red blood cell surface aptamers by inertial microfluidic SELEX (I-SELEX).

Engineering cells with active-ingredient-loaded micro/nanoparticles is becoming increasingly popular for imaging and therapeutic applications. A critical yet inadequately addressed issue during its implementation concerns the significant number of particles that remain unbound following the engineering process, which inadvertently generate signals and impart transformative effects onto neighboring nontarget cells. Here we demonstrate that those unbound micro/nanoparticles remaining in solution can be efficiently separated from the particle-labeled cells by implementing a fast, continuous, and high-throughput Dean flow fractionation (DFF) microfluidic device. As proof-of-concept, we applied the DFF microfluidic device for buffer exchange to sort labeled suspension cells (THP-1) from unbound fluorescent dye and dye-loaded micro/nanoparticles. Compared to conventional centrifugation, the depletion efficiency of free dyes or particles was improved 20-fold and the mislabeling of nontarget bystander cells by free particles was minimized. The microfluidic device was adapted to further accommodate heterogeneous-sized mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Complete removal of unbound nanoparticles using DFF led to the usage of engineered MSCs without exerting off-target transformative effects on the functional properties of neighboring endothelial cells. Apart from its effectiveness in removing free particles, this strategy is also efficient and scalable. It could continuously process cell solutions with concentrations up to 10(7) cells·mL(-1) (cell densities commonly encountered during cell therapy) without observable loss of performance. Successful implementation of this technology is expected to pave the way for interference-free clinical application of micro/nanoparticle engineered cells.

Interference-free Micro/nanoparticle Cell Engineering by Use of High-Throughput Microfluidic Separation.

Sepsis represents a systemic inflammatory response caused by microbial infection in blood. Herein, we present a novel comprehensive approach to mitigate inflammatory responses through broad spectrum removal of pathogens, leukocytes and cytokines based on biomimetic cell margination. Using a murine model of polymicrobial sepsis induced by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP), we performed extracorporeal blood filtration with the developed microfluidic blood margination (μBM) device. Circulating bacteremia, leukocytes and cytokines in blood decreased post-filtration and significant attenuation of immune cell and cytokine responses were observed 3-5 days after intervention, indicating successful long-term immunomodulation. A dose-dependent effect on long-term immune cell count was also achieved by varying filtration time. As proof of concept for human therapy, the μBM device was scaled up to achieve ∼100-fold higher throughput (∼150 mL h(-1)). With further multiplexing, the μBM technique could be applied in clinical settings as an adjunctive treatment for sepsis and other inflammatory diseases.

Broad spectrum immunomodulation using biomimetic blood cell margination for sepsis therapy.

Isolation of low abundance proteins or rare cells from complex mixtures, such as blood, is required for many diagnostic, therapeutic and research applications. Current affinity-based protein or cell separation methods use binary 'bind-elute' separations and are inefficient when applied to the isolation of multiple low-abundance proteins or cell types. We present a method for rapid and multiplexed, yet inexpensive, affinity-based isolation of both proteins and cells, using a size-coded mixture of multiple affinity-capture microbeads and an inertial microfluidic particle sorter device. In a single binding step, different targets-cells or proteins-bind to beads of different sizes, which are then sorted by flowing them through a spiral microfluidic channel. This technique performs continuous-flow, high throughput affinity-separation of milligram-scale protein samples or millions of cells in minutes after binding. We demonstrate the simultaneous isolation of multiple antibodies from serum and multiple cell types from peripheral blood mononuclear cells or whole blood. We use the technique to isolate low abundance antibodies specific to different HIV antigens and rare HIV-specific cells from blood obtained from HIV+ patients.

Han Wei Hou

Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine

Nanyang Technological University

Microfluidic Buffer Exchange for Interference-free Micro/Nanoparticle Cell Engineering

Han Wei Hou

.css-o250i3{font-size:18px;font-family:Open Sans,sans-serif;line-height:21.6px;}Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine

Nanyang Technological University

Microfluidic Buffer Exchange for Interference-free Micro/Nanoparticle Cell Engineering

Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine