Abstract
In this paper we study the dynamics of single cells encapsulated in water-in-oil emulsions in a microchannel. The flow field of a microfluidic channel is coupled to the internal flow field of a droplet through viscous traction at the interface, resulting in a rotational flow field inside the droplet. An encapsulated single cell being subjected to this flow field responds by undergoing multiple orbits, spins, and deformations that depend on its physical properties. Monitoring the cell dynamics, using a high-speed camera, can lead to the development of new label-free methods for the detection of rare cells, based on their biomechanical properties. A sheath flow microchannel was proposed to strengthen the rotational flow field inside droplets flowing in Poiseuille flow conditions. A numerical model was developed to investigate the effect of various parameters on the rotational flow field inside a droplet. The multi-phase flow model required the tracking of the fluid–fluid interface, which deforms over time due to the applied shear stresses. Experiments confirmed the significant effect of the sheath flow rate on the cell dynamics, where the speed of cell orbiting was doubled. Doubling the cell speed can double the amount of extracted biomechanical information from the encapsulated cell, while it remains within the field of view of the camera used.
Highlights
Accepted: 16 July 2021Emulsion-based microfluidics has various important applications in chemistry and biology, ranging from drug discovery to biomolecule synthesis [1,2,3,4]
This disturbance causes the generation of a viscous force that opposes the interfacial tension to generate a rotational flow field inside the droplet
This paper studies the rotational flow fields inside water-in-oil emulsions flowing in Poiseuille flow conditions and how they affect the dynamics of encapsulated single cells
Summary
Emulsion-based microfluidics has various important applications in chemistry and biology, ranging from drug discovery to biomolecule synthesis [1,2,3,4]. Microfluidics label-free cell sorting mechanisms can include microfilters [16], pinched flow fractionation (PFF) [17], deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) [18], inertial sorting [19], hydrodynamic filtration [20], magnetophoresis [21], dielectrophoresis [22], and acoustophoresis [23]. Emulsion biomechanics is another label-free biomechanics technique for cell detection, where single cells are encapsulated inside water-in-oil emulsions and studied under various microfluidic conditions [9]. The effect of the sheath flow rate on the cell dynamics was demonstrated experimentally
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