An acoustofluidic platform for non-contact trapping of cell-laden hydrogel droplets compatible with optical microscopy
(2019) In Biomicrofluidics 13(4).- Abstract
Production of cell-laden hydrogel droplets as miniaturized niches for 3D cell culture provides a new route for cell-based assays. Such production can be enabled by droplet microfluidics and here we present a droplet trapping system based on bulk acoustic waves for handling hydrogel droplets in a continuous flow format. The droplet trapping system consists of a glass capillary equipped with a small piezoelectric transducer. By applying ultrasound (4 MHz), a localized acoustic standing wave field is generated in the capillary, trapping the droplets in a well-defined cluster above the transducer area. The results show that the droplet cluster can be retained at flow rates of up to 76 μl/min, corresponding to an average flow speed of 3.2... (More)
Production of cell-laden hydrogel droplets as miniaturized niches for 3D cell culture provides a new route for cell-based assays. Such production can be enabled by droplet microfluidics and here we present a droplet trapping system based on bulk acoustic waves for handling hydrogel droplets in a continuous flow format. The droplet trapping system consists of a glass capillary equipped with a small piezoelectric transducer. By applying ultrasound (4 MHz), a localized acoustic standing wave field is generated in the capillary, trapping the droplets in a well-defined cluster above the transducer area. The results show that the droplet cluster can be retained at flow rates of up to 76 μl/min, corresponding to an average flow speed of 3.2 mm/s. The system allows for important operations such as continuous perfusion and/or addition of chemical reagents to the encapsulated cells with in situ optical access. This feature is demonstrated by performing on-chip staining of the cell nuclei. The key advantages of this trapping method are that it is label-free and gentle and thus well-suited for biological applications. Moreover, the droplets can easily be released on-demand, which facilitates downstream analysis. It is envisioned that the presented droplet trapping system will be a valuable tool for a wide range of multistep assays as well as long-term monitoring of cells encapsulated in gel-based droplets.
(Less)
- author
- Fornell, Anna LU ; Johannesson, Carl LU ; Searle, Sean S. ; Happstadius, Axel ; Nilsson, Johan LU and Tenje, Maria LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2019-07-11
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Biomicrofluidics
- volume
- 13
- issue
- 4
- article number
- 044101
- publisher
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85069042020
- pmid:31312286
- ISSN
- 1932-1058
- DOI
- 10.1063/1.5108583
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 430a4536-5414-4e3f-914a-fbfb95ea80ae
- date added to LUP
- 2019-07-26 10:45:57
- date last changed
- 2024-04-16 17:06:44
@article{430a4536-5414-4e3f-914a-fbfb95ea80ae,
abstract = {{<p>Production of cell-laden hydrogel droplets as miniaturized niches for 3D cell culture provides a new route for cell-based assays. Such production can be enabled by droplet microfluidics and here we present a droplet trapping system based on bulk acoustic waves for handling hydrogel droplets in a continuous flow format. The droplet trapping system consists of a glass capillary equipped with a small piezoelectric transducer. By applying ultrasound (4 MHz), a localized acoustic standing wave field is generated in the capillary, trapping the droplets in a well-defined cluster above the transducer area. The results show that the droplet cluster can be retained at flow rates of up to 76 μl/min, corresponding to an average flow speed of 3.2 mm/s. The system allows for important operations such as continuous perfusion and/or addition of chemical reagents to the encapsulated cells with in situ optical access. This feature is demonstrated by performing on-chip staining of the cell nuclei. The key advantages of this trapping method are that it is label-free and gentle and thus well-suited for biological applications. Moreover, the droplets can easily be released on-demand, which facilitates downstream analysis. It is envisioned that the presented droplet trapping system will be a valuable tool for a wide range of multistep assays as well as long-term monitoring of cells encapsulated in gel-based droplets.</p>}},
author = {{Fornell, Anna and Johannesson, Carl and Searle, Sean S. and Happstadius, Axel and Nilsson, Johan and Tenje, Maria}},
issn = {{1932-1058}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{07}},
number = {{4}},
publisher = {{American Institute of Physics (AIP)}},
series = {{Biomicrofluidics}},
title = {{An acoustofluidic platform for non-contact trapping of cell-laden hydrogel droplets compatible with optical microscopy}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.5108583}},
doi = {{10.1063/1.5108583}},
volume = {{13}},
year = {{2019}},
}