High-throughput and clogging-free microfluidic filtration platform for on-chip cell separation from undiluted whole blood

Abstract

Rapid separation of white blood cells from whole blood sample is often required for their subsequent analyses of functions and phenotypes, and many advances have been made in this field. However, most current microfiltration-based cell separation microfluidic chips still suffer from low-throughput and membrane clogging. This paper reports on a high-throughput and clogging-free microfluidic filtration platform, which features with an integrated bidirectional micropump and commercially available polycarbonate microporous membranes. The integrated bidirectional micropump enables the fluid to flush micropores back and forth, effectively avoiding membrane clogging. The microporous membrane allows red blood cells passing through high-density pores in a cross-flow mixed with dead-end filtration mode. All the separation processes, including blood and buffer loading, separation, and sample collection, are automatically controlled for easy operation and high throughput. Both microbead mixture and undiluted whole blood sample are separated by the platform effectively. In particular, for white blood cell separation, the chip recovered 72.1% white blood cells with an over 232-fold enrichment ratio at a throughput as high as 37.5 μl/min. This high-throughput, clogging-free, and highly integrated platform holds great promise for point-of-care blood pretreatment, analysis, and diagnosis applications.

Characterization of thermoplastic microfiltration chip for the separation of blood plasma from human blood

“…adhesive into the ring-shaped structure and the major aim was to prevent leakage during the filtration process. Compared to other microfluidic chips, [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][19][20][21] the onsite blood filtration could be realized with this device by inserting the tip of the plastic syringe into this device. The bonding technique, two-step injection and curing of UV adhesive, would ensure an efficient filtration process and no leakage would happen during the filtration process.…”

Dielectrophoresis for Biomedical Sciences Applications: A Review

“…Furthermore, a common electroporation instrument such as an optical tweezer will damage the cell membrane during the transfection [165]. DEP techniques have circumvented the research impediment by providing a high resolution of isolation and separation of target bio-particles directly from the whole blood and other biological fluid samples [126,173,174,175]. Furthermore, unlike optical tweezers, DEP provides a low applied voltage and an alternating current for gene transfection from DNA that can prevent cell membrane damage [165].…”

Pulsatile Flow in Microfluidic Systems

“…[26] In 2016, Cheng et al demonstrated a clogging-free platform for cell separation from undiluted blood, which is highly susceptible to clogging. [123] They used a bidirectional micropump to enable reverse flushing of micropores to prevent clogging of the commercially available polycarbonate membranes. Their bidirectional flow strategy highlights the impact of oscillatory motion in clog prevention.…”