Single-cell-trapping Microarrays with High Trapping Efficiency and Negligible Shear Stress

Abstract

In this study, two novel hydrodynamics-based radial microarrays are proposed to trap single cells with high trapping efficiency and negligible shear stress. Both microarrays are designed based on a single cell trapping microdevice we designed using a combination of the stagnation point flow and the boundary effect. For each microarray, the efficiency of trapping is evaluated with the flow velocity distribution in the microfluidic channel through two models: an initial model calculates the velocity distribution without cell trapping; in the contrary, a trapping model estimates the velocity distribution when a cell is trapped at the stagnation point. In both models, the flow velocity distribution is obtained using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package ANSYS 16.0. We conclude that both microarrays can capture single cells with high trapping success rate and negligible shear stress, which would be effective experimental platforms to study single cell behaviors in response to extracellular stimuli.