MICROFLUIDIC SINGLE CELL ALIGNER PACK
Ready to be connected to your fluidic system
Based on a patented liquid tube technology: the integrity of the living cells is preserved
To ensure the well-being of your biological fluids
QFLUIDICS single cell aligner
This pack is based on the high accuracy of the Elveflow OB1 with the unique low-shear capability of Qfluidics. This all-in-one solution is the perfect system to control and align your most precious cells without any sheath flow for sorting experiments.
This cell aligner technology is integrated in a customizable, user-friendly and automatized microfluidic platform composed of instruments that allow easy injection of different fluids to the cell aligner from Qfluidics. The aligned cells are then injected to a transparent microfluidic chip where you can implement your equipment for cell observation or sorting.
As cell populations show a great heterogeneity (size morphologies, etc.), which directly influences the interpretation of diagnostic and therapeutic results of diseases [1], it is crucial to be able to manipulate and align them for proper sorting with the key difficulty being the fragility of those living cells which are very sensitive to mechanical stress (shear stress).
Over the past decades, researchers have developed non trivial strategies to manipulate single cells ranging from dielectrophoresis [2] to optical tweezers [3] and acoustic waves [4].
Recently, experts at Qfluidics have designed a simple way to magnetically confine a magnetic liquid (ferrofluid) into a funnel like shape to “levitate” a second immiscible liquid [5]. This unique liquid-liquid interface grants an ultra low-shear as the cells are aligned without any friction (and thus without any damage see figure 1).
An electro-magnetically actuated “liquid valve” (also made of ferrofluid is built in to be able to control the flow of cells in a contactless way, thus preserving the well-being of the cells.
References
1. Luo, T., Fan, L., Zhu, R. & Sun, D. Microfluidic Single-Cell Manipulation and Analysis: Methods and Applications. Micromachines (Basel) 10, (2019)
2. Taff, B.M.; Voldman, J. A scalable addressable positive-dielectrophoretic cell-sorting array. Anal. Chem. 2005, 77, 7976–7983
3. Ashkin, A., Dziedzic, J. M. & Yamane, T. Optical trapping and manipulation of single cells using infrared laser beams. Nature 330, 769–771 (1987)
4. Collins, D. J. et al. Two-dimensional single-cell patterning with one cell per well driven by surface acoustic waves. Nat Commun 6, 8686 (2015)
5. Dev, A. A., Dunne, P., Hermans, T. M. & Doudin, B. Fluid drag reduction by magnetic confinement. arXiv:2006.14973 (2020).
Single cell aligner pack setup
The fluids (medium containing cells, washing solution…) are pressurized in reservoirs by an OB1 MK4 flow controller and selected by a MUX distributor so they can be sequentially injected to the cell aligner with automated sequences. A microfluidic flow sensor is also included to measure and regulate the flow rate thanks to a feedback loop to the OB1 flow controller.
A bubble trap can also be implemented to remove any air that could harm the cells during the experiment.
This all-in-one pack assembles compatible state-of-the-art instruments that can be used to start your experiment out of the box. They are piloted by a single software and can be used for other different applications. Thus, this pack is the best and easiest way to setup a microfluidic experiment for cell alignment.
This pack contains:
- The Qfluidics cell aligner liquid tube
- OB1 MK4 flow controller (Elveflow)
- A flow rate sensor MFS (or BFS-Coriolis flow sensor) (Elveflow)
- A distribution valve MUX distributor (Elveflow)
- A pressure splitter manifold
- Falcon or Eppendorf reservoirs
- Software with automated sequences (Elveflow)
Advantages of microfluidics for single cell alignement
The basic principle of microfluidics is to use tiny volumes of sample which can be a critical improvement for valuable cell solutions.
Moreover, Qfluidics’s cell aligner is simpler than more conventional methods as it relies only on its funnel architecture to align cell and the valving system allows to tune the volume of cells transported to the cell sorter.
Also, the liquid-liquid interface guarantees an extreme low-shear without requiring sheath flow and eliminates potential biohazardous aerosols.
To summarize, microfluidics solutions allow more flexible, precise, automated and efficient cell sorting.
Customize your microfluidic single cell aligner pack
The cell aligner developed by Qfluidics is available in various sizes and can be adapted on demand. The ferrofluid can be manufactured on demand to meet your expectations in terms of:
- Non-miscibility with the solvent used in your experiment/production (leachable < 100 ppb)
- Complete biocompatibility for biofluids (cells, blood, etc.)
Contact our scientists and engineers for any questions about this single-cell aligner pack and how it can match your specifications.
– Check our other Packs for various applications –
How can we help your experiment
The packs applications are still under development, so we are not able to give you the tips or troubleshooting advice that we usually give in our user guides and application notes for the possible challenges you could face for a specific application experiment. That being said, we can always guarantee reliable and high-precision microfluidic flow control. Our microfluidic instruments are high-performance, versatile and user-friendly. Our experts will bring support and expertise during the setup and implementation of this sensor calibration pack.
Can a pack be customized
Yes! Our experts will establish which instruments are best suited for your application, such as the type of flow sensor or the number of flow controller channels you need to perform your experiment. Drop a line at innovation@microfluidic.fr.
Can I buy individual instruments?
You can order the instruments on the product section of our website.