Ultra high-speed sorting.
BACKGROUND
Cell sorting has a history dating back approximately 40 years. The main limitation has been that, although flow cytometry is a science, cell sorting has been an art during most of this time. Recent advances in assisting technologies have helped to decrease the amount of expertise necessary to perform sorting.


METHODS
Droplet-based sorting is based on a controlled disturbance of a jet stream dependent on surface tension. Sorting yield and purity are highly dependent on stable jet break-off position. System pressures and orifice diameters dictate the number of droplets per second, which is the sort rate limiting step because modern electronics can more than handle the higher cell signal processing rates.


RESULTS
Cell sorting still requires considerable expertise. Complex multicolor sorting also requires new and more sophisticated sort decisions, especially when cell subpopulations are rare and need to be extracted from background. High-speed sorting continues to pose major problems in terms of biosafety due to the aerosols generated.


CONCLUSIONS
Cell sorting has become more stable and predictable and requires less expertise to operate. However, the problems of aerosol containment continue to make droplet-based cell sorting problematical. Fluid physics and cell viability restraints pose practical limits for high-speed sorting that have almost been reached. Over the next 5 years there may be advances in fluidic switching sorting in lab-on-a-chip microfluidic systems that could not only solve the aerosol and viability problems but also make ultra high-speed sorting possible and practical through massively parallel and exponential staging microfluidic architectures.
Leary
James F
JF
Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN 47907-2026, USA. jfleary@purdue.edu
D000336:Aerosols / Q000009:adverse effects; D052158:Aptamers, Peptide / Q000032:analysis; D001483:Base Sequence; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics; D002470:Cell Survival; D020650:Combinatorial Chemistry Techniques; D005434:Flow Cytometry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D016147:Genes, Tumor Suppressor; D006801:Humans; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000379:methods; D008863:Microspheres; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics; D016328:NF-kappa B / Q000378:metabolism; D051059:PTEN Phosphohydrolase / Q000235:genetics; D017421:Sequence Analysis; D013997:Time Factors
D000336:Aerosols; D052158:Aptamers, Peptide; D016328:NF-kappa B; D051059:PTEN Phosphohydrolase