Low-Cost Portable Microfluidic System for Cell Migration

摘要

Low-cost and portable microfluidic systems are needed for cell migration research and Point of Care (POC) testing. This study introduces a low-cost and portable USB Microscope Microfluidic Chemotaxis Analysis System (UMCAS) for rapid analysis of cell chemotaxis studies. A standalone microfluidic gradient generator is also developed for rapid generation of chemical gradient in microfluidic device without need of any peripheral perfusion apparatus. A smart phone based application program was developed for the real-time remote monitoring of the migration data. This system is validated by observing the neutrophil migration in three different conditions: 1) medium control, 2) uniform IL-8 control, and 3) IL-8 gradient. The results show that neutrophils exhibit random migration in both medium and uniform IL-8 control experiments, while they show strong directional migration to the IL-8 gradient. These results successfully validated the developed UMCAS system.

主权项

1. A microfluidic system for use with an auxiliary computing device in cell migration assays, the system comprising:
a portable housing; a primary light source received in the housing; a microfluidic device arranged to generate a chemical gradient and introduce sample cells to the chemical gradient; a support assembly arranged to support the microfluidic device in proximity to the primary light source within the housing; an image capturing device supported in the housing in proximity to the support assembly so as to be arranged to capture images of the microfluidic device when supported on the support assembly for illumination by the primary light source; the image capturing device comprising a USB peripheral device including a USB connector arranged to transfer the images from the image capturing device to the auxiliary computing device; and an operating program arranged to be executed on the auxiliary computing device which includes an image analysis tool arranged to process the images captured by the image capturing device so as to identify the sample cells from a remaining background portion of the captured images.