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Parallel trapping of single motile cells based on vibration-induced flow

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Abstract

We propose an on-chip cell manipulation method for trapping single motile cells in parallel. The proposed method traps large (\(\gtrsim \,50\,\upmu \hbox {m}\)) motile cells in parallel, which is difficult to achieve by conventional cell manipulation methods based on optical, acoustic, electric, or magnetic forces. The trapping method exploits the flow induced by applying a vibration to a microfluidic chip with microstructures on its surface. By applying a rectilinear vibration to a chip with pairs of micropillars, we can trap single motile cells within the local flow generated between the micropillars. Using the proposed method, we trapped single Euglena gracilis cells (of size 50–100 \(\upmu \hbox {m}\)) in parallel. Moreover, we evaluate the trapping performance for various micropillar array design parameters and the controllability of the trapping-flow velocity by varying the amplitude of the vibration. The proposed method was then demonstrated in a motility evaluation of motile cells. The demonstration confirms the potential of the proposed method in realizing high-throughput motility evaluations of single motile cells.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the support by Dr. Takuro Ito for teaching how to treat E. gracilis. We thank Kim Moravec, PhD, from Edanz Group (www.edanzediting.com/ac) for editing a draft of this manuscript. This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP15H06268 and JP17K14623.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Micro-Nano Systems Engineering, Nagoya University, Room 311, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Research Building 3F, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi-Prefecture, 464-8603, Japan

    Takeshi Hayakawa, Yusuke Akita & Fumihito Arai

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  1. Takeshi Hayakawa
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  2. Yusuke Akita
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  3. Fumihito Arai
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Correspondence to Takeshi Hayakawa.

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Hayakawa, T., Akita, Y. & Arai, F. Parallel trapping of single motile cells based on vibration-induced flow. Microfluid Nanofluid 22, 42 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-018-2062-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-018-2062-4

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