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An optical-manipulation technique for cells in physiological flows

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Abstract

We have developed a technique to manipulate human red blood cells (RBCs) in hydrodynamic flows. This method applies optical tweezers to trap and move microbead-attached RBCs in a liquid medium at various speeds, while it significantly minimizes laser heating and photon-induced stress for normal operation with laser-trapped cells. Computational fluid dynamics is applied to simulate flow-induced shear stress over the cell membrane and to correlate quantitatively the forces with the cell deformations. RBCs can be manipulated under physiological conditions by this approach, which may open an avenue to design principles for the next generation of cell sorting and delivery.

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Acknowledgements

The work is partly supported by the project funding (BB/D014786/1), which is co-funded by BBSCR and EPSRC (Life Science Interface Programme).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Science and Technology in Medicine, Keele University, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 7QB, UK

    Hu Zhang & Alicia El Haj

  2. Department of Statistics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, 70101, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Neng H. Chen

  3. School of Engineering, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    Kuo-Kang Liu

Authors
  1. Hu Zhang
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  2. Neng H. Chen
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  3. Alicia El Haj
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  4. Kuo-Kang Liu
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Correspondence to Kuo-Kang Liu.

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Zhang, H., Chen, N.H., El Haj, A. et al. An optical-manipulation technique for cells in physiological flows. J Biol Phys 36, 135–143 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-009-9176-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10867-009-9176-6

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