title: Hydrodynamic gating valve for microfluidic fluorescence-activated cell sorting.
abstract: Microfluidic cell sorter allows efficient separation of small number of cells, which is beneficial in handling cells, especially primary cells that cannot be expanded to large populations. Here, we demonstrate a microfluidic fluorescence-activated cell sorter (muFACS) with a novel sorting mechanism, in which automatic on-chip sorting is realized by turning on/off the hydrodynamic gating valve when a fluorescent target is detected. Formation of the hydrodynamic gating valve was investigated by both numerical simulation and flow visualization experiment. Separation of fluorescent polystyrene beads was then conducted to evaluate this sorting mechanism and to optimize the separation conditions. Isolation of fluorescent HeLa-DsRed cells was further demonstrated with high purity and recovery rate. Viability of the sorted cells was also examined, suggesting a survival rate of more than 90%. We expect this sorting approach to find widespread applications in bioanalysis.
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
authors.forename: Pu
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Xiaojun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Bi-Feng
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D002469:Cell Separation / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D002470:Cell Survival; D004867:Equipment Design; D005434:Flow Cytometry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods