Slide rail type dielectrophoresis electrode structure for high-throughput continuous flow cell separation

Abstract

The invention discloses a slide rail type dielectrophoresis electrode structure for high-throughput continuous flow cell separation and belongs to the technical field of micro-fluidic chips. The structure comprises an interdigital electrode array formed by slide rail type electrodes which form an inclination angle alpha with a main runner and cross the main runner, a pair of main electrode which alternately extend to be interdigital and located on two sides of the main runner, parallel sub-runners formed by dividing the main runner by non-uniform side wall structures of the interdigital electrodes, an insulating groove and an inlet / outlet of a sample. The slide rail electrodes with non-uniform side wall structures are placed in the main runner at a certain inclination angle, so that cellsslide along two side walls of a slide layer under the action of dielectrophoresis force and drag force of fluid and enter a migration outlet, and continuous separation of cells is realized. Besides, by changing one-way slide rail type electrodes into two-way V-shaped slide rail type electrodes, the throughput is further improved while continuous cell separation is realized.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention belongs to the technical field of cell sorting in microfluidic chip technology, and in particular relates to a slide rail type dielectrophoresis electrode structure for high-throughput continuous flow cell separation. Background technique [0002] Cell separation technology refers to the technology of obtaining a certain type of cell from a sample containing a variety of cells, which is widely used in many fields of biomedical research and clinical treatment. For example, during water quality testing, bacteria and parasites in water quality can be separated and detected; clinically, the screening and analysis of disease-related cells can be used for disease diagnosis and pathological research, and some rare cells such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs), Screening of circulating fetal cells (CFCs) can provide valuable information for early diagnosis and precise treatment of diseases. [0003] Traditional cell separation methods (such as ce...

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Problems solved by technology

However, most of the reported electrode structures for dielectrophoretic cell separation use planar electrode structures or three-dimensional electrode structures with uniform side walls, such as Chinese patent 201510585845.6 and Chinese patent 201510379158.9. These types of electrodes cannot generate effective electric fields along the depth of the channel. However, the three-microelectrode structure with non-uniform side walls, which can generate effective electric field gradients in the depth direction of the channel, can only achieve batch-type cell separation at low flow rates due to structural limitations. Low, such as Chinese patent 201811550218.9

The Yobas research group of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology introduced a three-dimensional silicon electrode structure that can achieve continuous flow cell separation in a report in 2017-2018. However, in order to generate an effective electric field gradient in the vertical direction to manipulate cells, only the The silicon-based electrode is etched in a wavy shape, which makes the cells slide from the peak to the trough with obvious acceleration, so the cells cannot slide on the upper side of the electrode but can only slide on the lower side and flow to the collection outlet. less efficient

In addition, the silicon-based electrodes used have the defects of complicated processing technology, high cost and opaque substrate.

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