Ferromagnetic nickel silicide nanowires for isolating primary CD4+ T lymphocytes

Abstract

Direct CD4+ T lymphocytes were separated from whole mouse splenocytes using 1-dimensional ferromagnetic nickel silicide nanowires (NiSi NWs). NiSi NWs were prepared by silver-assisted wet chemical etching of silicon and subsequent deposition and annealing of Ni. This method exhibits a separation efficiency of ∼93.5%, which is comparable to that of the state-of-the-art superparamagnetic bead-based cell capture (∼96.8%). Furthermore, this research shows potential for separation of other lymphocytes, B, natural killer and natural killer T cells, and even rare tumor cells simply by changing the biotin-conjugated antibodies.