Microfluidic Cell Separation and Genetic Analysis of Kuruma Shrimp

Abstract

We used microfluidics to separate immune cells from non-model organisms based on the cell size using the Deterministic Lateral Displacement (DLD) method. In this study, we targeted shrimp (Marsupenaeus japonicus) as a non-model organism that is widely cultured all over the world. We evaluated the efficiency of the size separation of target cells by flow cytometer (FCM) and image analysis. Besides, to predict the functions of the separated cells, we conducted gene expression analysis on the separated cells by qRT-PCR. The results showed that different sizes of cells have different immune functions.