Shear rheology of methyl cellulose based solutions for cell mechanical measurements at high shear rates

Abstract

Methyl cellulose (MC) is a widely used material in various microfluidic applications in biology. Due to its biocompatibility, it has become a popular crowding agent for microfluidic cell deformability measurements,...

High-throughput viscoelastic characterization of cells in hyperbolic microchannels

“…This concentration of glycerol corresponds to a dynamic viscosity of 100 mPa s at 25 °C. 41,42 Before measurements, cells and beads were suspended into a 0.6 w/w% solution of methyl cellulose (MC) (4000 cPs, Alfa Aesar 036718.22, CAS 9004-67-5) dissolved in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) (Gibco Dulbecco 14190144) following the protocol of Büyükurgancı et al 16,24 The osmolality of PBS was adjusted to values between 280-290 mOsm kg −1 before the addition of MC (VAPRO Vapor Pressure Osmometer 5600, Wescor, USA). To prepare MC-PBS solutions for 1 L of PBS (1010 g), 6.00 g MC powder were utilized, resulting in a 0.594 w/w% MC concentration in the final solution.…”

“…† The Young's modulus of the beads was measured with real-time deformability cytometry (RT-DC, see ESI † text). 16,19,24 Production of silicone oil droplets…”

“…5,16,22,23 This augmentation leads to non-Newtonian behavior, including shear-thinning, the occurrence of normal stress differences, or strain-thickening. [24][25][26] Notably, this behavior is frequently characterized solely in shear, neglecting the qualitatively different behavior in extension. 5,22,23 In this study, we address these challenges by introducing hyperbolic microchannels as a novel approach for accurate cell viscoelastic measurements under well-defined tensile stresses and strains.…”

“…5,16,22,23 This augmentation leads to non-Newtonian behavior, including shear-thinning, the occurrence of normal stress differences, or strain-thickening. 24–26 Notably, this behavior is frequently characterized solely in shear, neglecting the qualitatively different behavior in extension. 5,22,23…”

A new hyperelastic lookup table for RT-DC

“…For the 0.5% MC-PBS buffer in the scaling validation, we used the measured fluid consistency coefficient of 0.2671 Pa s and a flow behavior index of 0.6264. For a detailed description of the buffer rheology, see Bu ¨yu ¨kurgancı et al 21…”