Fabrication and Characterization of A Rigid Microfluidic Mechanoporation Device with High Pressure Tolerance and High Cell Transfection

Abstract

In this paper, authors present a device and its fabrication process that shows limited elastic deformation or change in channel geometry, and enables consistent mechanoporation to hard-to-transfect cells under high pressure. First, we demonstrate a novel fabrication method to make rigid microfluidic devices using directly castable epoxy materials without additional molding steps. Next, we develop a novel imaging method using chemical conjugation of fluorophores to PDMS or epoxy to quantitatively characterize channel geometry. Using the image-based method, we show that rigid devices have reduced channel deformation at high pressures. Finally, we fabricate and characterize a rigid microfluidic mechanoporation devices and demonstrate its ability to transfect a T cell line and primary T cells.