Document Type

Article

Publication Date

November 2014

Publication Title

Biomicrofluidics

Volume

8

Issue Number

064106

DOI

10.1063/1.4902371

Keywords

Biological Electrophoresis

Disciplines

Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

Abstract

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) has proven an invaluable tool for the enrichment of populations of stem and progenitor cells owing to its ability to sort cells in a label-free manner and its biological safety. However, DEP separation devices have suffered from a low throughput preventing researchers from undertaking studies requiring large numbers of cells, such as needed for cell transplantation. We developed a microfluidic device designed for the enrichment of stem and progenitor cell populations that sorts cells at a rate of 150,000 cells/h, corresponding to an improvement in the throughput achieved with our previous device designs by over an order of magnitude. This advancement, coupled with data showing the DEP-sorted cells retain their enrichment and differentiation capacity when expanded in culture for periods of up to 2 weeks, provides sufficient throughput and cell numbers to enable a wider variety of experiments with enriched stem and progenitor cellpopulations. Furthermore, the sorting devicespresented here provide ease of setup and operation, a simple fabrication process, and a low associated cost to use that makes them more amenable for use in common biological research laboratories. To our knowledge, this work represents the first to enrich stem cells and expand them in culture to generate transplantation-scale numbers of differentiation-competent cells using DEP.

Comments

This article originally appeared in Biomicrofluidics, 8, 064106, 2014. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC. This work can also be found online at this link

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