Development of a uniform cell dispersion structure in microfluidic channels with low cell loss.

Abstract

In this study, a cell homogeneous dispersion structure with low cell loss in microfluidic devices was developed. Microfluidic devices can exert great power in experiments using biological cells, but the small scale of the channels prevents the uniform introduction of cells, reducing the efficiency and reproducibility of the experiments. The use of micropillar arrays (MPA), in which the spacing between the pillars is smaller than the diameter of the cells, generates random flow as cells are repeatedly embolised and passed between the pillars, resulting in uniform dispersion, but the low cell passage rate makes it inapplicable to valuable cells. In this study, a balloon was used to switch the flow channel width in MPAs with sufficient pillar spacing for the cell size to achieve both uniform dispersion of cells and an increase in cell passage rate.