Development and application of integrated high-throughput microfluidic cell migration chip / 安徽医科大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To solve the problems of low throughput of current cell migration research methods，which was difficult to establish a stable concentration gradient and observe cell migration behavior in real time，a six-channel array microfluidic chip was designed in this paper．@*Methods @#In this paper，a six-channel array microfluidic chip is designed．Firstly，multiphysics modeling and numerical simulation were performed using the finite element analysis software COMSOL Multiphysics 5．5 to analyze the flow behavior of the main pipeline of cell migration. Then，the throughput advantage of the device was verified by testing the chemotaxis response of healthy human neutrophils to different types of chemokine gradients in this microfluidic chip．Subsequently，by analyzing the migration rate of neutrophils in 6 patients with type II diabetes mellitus and 3 healthy people，the clinical applicability of the annular six-channel array microfluidic chip was further verified．Finally，the Pearson coefficient was used to analyze the correlation between neutrophil chemotaxis function and some physiological indicators in patients with diabetes. @*Results@#The concentration gradient data inside the pipeline simulated by the simulation software was compatible with the real-time fluorescence test data of the pipeline．The average migration rate of healthy human neutrophils was (0．21 ± 0．01 ) μm / s in 100 nmol / L interleukin-8 ( IL-8 ) environment and (0．22 ± 0．01 ) μm / s in 100 nmol / L N-Formyl-Met-Leu-Phe ( fMLP) environment． In the comparison of neutrophil migration experiments between healthy people and diabetic patients，the chemotaxis rate of neutrophils in healthy people was (0．19 ± 0．01) μm / s ，and the neutrophil chemotaxis rate in diabetic patients was (0. 15 ± 0. 02 ) μm / s． Correlation analysis showed that neutrophil migration rate in patients with type II diabetes mellitus was inversely correlated with glycated hemoglobin．@*Conclusion@#The high-throughput microfluidic chip proposed in this paper allowed rapid and selective detection of cell migration characteristics at the single-cell level，and it could be used as a new tool for cell migration research.