Lateral migration of living cells in inertial microfluidic systems explored by fully three-dimensional numerical simulation

TL;DR

This study uses fully three-dimensional numerical simulations to analyze how cell size and deformability influence lateral migration in inertial microfluidic channels, providing insights for improved cell separation device design.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive 3D simulation approach to study cell migration and deformation, highlighting the impact of cell properties and channel dimensions on separation efficiency.

Findings

Larger and more deformable cells migrate closer to the centerline.

Solvent viscosity significantly influences equilibrium position.

Reducing channel size enhances differences in cell positions based on viscoelastic properties.

Abstract

The effects of cell size and deformability on the lateral migration and deformation of living cells flowing through a rectangular microchannel has been numerically investigated and compared with the inertial-microfluidics data on detection and separation of cells. The results of this work indicate that the cells move closer to the centerline if they are bigger and/or more deformable and that their equilibrium position is largely determined by the solvent (cytosol) viscosity, which is much less than the polymer (cytoskeleton) viscosity measured in most rheological systems. Simulations also suggest that decreasing channel dimensions leads to larger differences in equilibrium position for particles of different viscoelastic properties, giving design guidance for the next generation of microfluidic cell separation chips.