Microbubble enhanced acoustic tweezers for size-independent cell sorting

Abstract

Acoustic tweezers hold great promise for potential applications in cell sorting due to their noncontact, noninvasive, and simple characteristics. Acoustic tweezers, however, have difficulty in separating the cells of the same size distribution, which hampers their applications. In this paper, we demonstrate that assisted by the targeted microbubble, two kinds of cells with an overlap in size distribution can be efficiently separated by surface acoustic waves. By specifically adhering the targeted microbubbles to MDA-MB-231 cells, the acoustic sensitivity of cells can be improved significantly, leading to the isolation of MDA-MB-231 from MCF-7 cells with an efficiency of 91.2 ± 3.4%. This method extends the diversity of acoustic separation and is capable of separation of particles with the same density and diameter, proving a strategy for specific cell sorting.