Microfluidic device could allow faster stroke diagnosis

Written by Hannah Stanwix, Future Science Group

Polymer-based technology can simultaneously isolate multiple cell types for rapid disease diagnosis.

Researchers from Louisiana State University (LA, USA), University of North Carolina (NC, USA) and The State University of New York (NY, USA) have developed a polymer microfluidic device that may allow rapid detection of biomarkers of stroke.

The team, led by Steven Soper, designed the microfluidic device and tested its ability to affinity select multiple types of biological cells simultaneously. According to the recently published research, the device comprises four selection beds with curvilinear channels (25 μm wide and 80 μm deep). The channels were modified with antibodies targeting antigens expressed by two different cell types.

The device was tested with CD4+ T cells and neutrophils selected from whole blood, cells that express genes that can be indicative of a stroke. The two cell types were simultaneously isolated with greater than 90% purity, with a processing time of approximately 3 minutes. The new technology also enabled enough cells to be recovered from a 50 μL whole blood sample for RT-PCR following cell lysis.

The team hypothesizes that this device could in future also be used to analyze other cell types where multiple subsets must be interrogated.

Source: Pullagurla SR, Witek MA, Jackson JM et al. Parallel affinity-based isolation of leukocyte subsets using microfluidics: application for stroke diagnosis. Anal. Chem. 86(8), 4058–4065 (2014).