Investigation of Leukocyte Viability in A Setup of Spiral Microchannel for Cell Sorting Application

Abstract

Recently, a spiral microchannel has been receiving remarkable attentions in a field of biology for cell separation. Because it could separate different sizes of cells and has potential to integrate together with other components for a biological study of a single cell. However, hydrodynamic forces in spiral section and other components could potentially cause cell to death and change in cell physical and biological properties, but there was rarely such study so far. Therefore, the investigation of cell viability in a setup of spiral microchannel including feeding system and spiral microchannel was performed in this work. Beside the cell viability investigation, the change in cell morphology and intracellular structures were also investigated. The results indicated that stresses—extensional and shear stresses might be the important factors affecting cell death. The significant loss of cell viability was not found in feeding system but 15–18% of cell loss occurred in a spiral microchannel instead.