title: Cell sorting by endocytotic capacity in a microfluidic magnetophoresis device.
abstract: Magnetically labelled cells are finding a wealth of applications for in vitro analysis as well as in vivo treatments. Sorting of cells into subpopulations based on their magnetite loading is an important step in such procedures. Here, we study the sorting of monocytes and macrophages which internalise nanoparticles to different extents based on their endocytotic capacity. Macrophages featured a high endocytotic activity and were found to internalise between 4 and 60 pg of iron per cell. They were successfully sorted into five subpopulations of narrow iron loading distributions via on-chip free-flow magnetophoresis, thus demonstrating the potential of sorting of relatively similarly loaded cells. Monocytes featured a low endocytotic capacity and took on 1 to 4 pg of iron per cell. Mixtures of monocytes and macrophages were successfully sorted within the free-flow magnetophoresis chip and good purity (>88%), efficacy (>60%) and throughput (from 10 to 100 cells s(-1)) could be achieved. The introduced method constitutes a viable tool for studies of endocytotic capacity and sorting/selection of cells based on this functionality.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes, UMR CNRS et Université Paris Diderot, France.
authors.forename: Damien
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Robert
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pamme
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Conjeaud
authors.forename: Florence
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gazeau
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Iles
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wilhelm
mesh_terms: D002465:Cell Movement; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000379:methods*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004705:Endocytosis; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006801:Humans; D007501:Iron / Q000032:analysis; D008264:Macrophages / Q000166:cytology; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D009000:Monocytes / Q000166:cytology; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D007501:Iron