WARF: P07024US
Gentle Method of Sorting Cells

INVENTORS

•

David Beebe, Ivar Meyvantsson

Conventional methods of separating cells included fluorescence-activated cell sorting and magnetic bead affinity sorting. However, these methods use antibodies that bind to cell surface antigens. Because the antigens are often cell signal receptors, the cell may receive a signal during sorting that alters its behavior. In addition, these procedures are frequently performed in non-physiological buffers that can negatively affect the integrity of the cells. UW-Madison researchers have developed a gentler cell-separation method that uses a microfluidic platform to sort cells based on their adhesion properties. The microfluidic device consists of an array of microchambers. A concentrated suspension of cells is placed into the first chamber and incubated for a short amount of time to allow some of the cells to adhere to the surface of the chamber. Unattached cells are then transferred to the next microchamber and incubated for a longer period of time. The procedure is repeated with increasing incubation times across the array until all cells of interest have attached. At this point, the array is labeled with multiple fluorophores characteristic of relevant cell types. A plot that shows how fluorescence intensity is associated with specific cell types as a function of incubation time or chamber number indicates the cell adhesion properties of different cell types.

• Cell sorting

• Provides a qualitative measure of cell adhesion, which varies among cell types, depending on the molecules that each cell expresses on its surface
• Because antibodies are only needed to calibrate this method, it is less likely to affect the experimental result than convention sorting methods.
• Because the adhesion properties of cells change as cancer progresses, comparing a sample of cancerous tissue to a sample of normal tissue from the same patient may provide information on cancer progression.
• Simpler and less expensive than previous sorting methods

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