caa a22 4500 605479631 CHVBK 20210128100411.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20151201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10544-015-0014-2 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10544-015-0014-2 A simple microfluidic device for the deformability assessment of blood cells in a continuous flow [Elektronische Daten] [Raquel Rodrigues, Diana Pinho, Vera Faustino, Rui Lima] Blood flow presents several interesting phenomena in microcirculation that can be used to develop microfluidic devices capable to promote blood cells separation and analysis in continuous flow. In the last decade there have been numerous microfluidic studies focused on the deformation of red blood cells (RBCs) flowing through geometries mimicking microvessels. In contrast, studies focusing on the deformation of white blood cells (WBCs) are scarce despite this phenomenon often happens in the microcirculation. In this work, we present a novel integrative microfluidic device able to perform continuous separation of a desired amount of blood cells, without clogging or jamming, and at the same time, capable to assess the deformation index (DI) of both WBCs and RBCs. To determine the DI of both WBCs and RBCs, a hyperbolic converging microchannel was used, as well as a suitable image analysis technique to measure the DIs of these blood cells along the regions of interest. The results show that the WBCs have a much lower deformability than RBCs when subjected to the same in vitro flow conditions, which is directly related to their cytoskeleton and nucleus contents. The proposed strategy can be easily transformed into a simple and inexpensive diagnostic microfluidic system to simultaneously separate and assess blood cells deformability. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2015 Microfluidic devices nationallicence Cell separation and deformability nationallicence Hyperbolic microchannel nationallicence Blood on chips nationallicence RBC nationallicence WBC nationallicence Rodrigues Raquel LCM - Laboratory of Catalysis and Materials - Associate Laboratory LSRE/LCM, Faculdade de Engenharia, da Universidade do Porto (FEUP), R. Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal aut Pinho Diana Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, ESTiG/IPB, C. Sta. Apolónia, 5301-857, Bragança, Portugal aut Faustino Vera Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, ESTiG/IPB, C. Sta. Apolónia, 5301-857, Bragança, Portugal aut Lima Rui Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, ESTiG/IPB, C. Sta. Apolónia, 5301-857, Bragança, Portugal aut Biomedical Microdevices Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 17/6(2015-12-01), 1-9 1387-2176 17:6<1 2015 17 10544 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-015-0014-2 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-015-0014-2 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Rodrigues Raquel LCM - Laboratory of Catalysis and Materials - Associate Laboratory LSRE/LCM, Faculdade de Engenharia, da Universidade do Porto (FEUP), R. Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Pinho Diana Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, ESTiG/IPB, C. Sta. Apolónia, 5301-857, Bragança, Portugal aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Faustino Vera Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, ESTiG/IPB, C. Sta. Apolónia, 5301-857, Bragança, Portugal aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Lima Rui Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, ESTiG/IPB, C. Sta. Apolónia, 5301-857, Bragança, Portugal aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Biomedical Microdevices Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 17/6(2015-12-01), 1-9 1387-2176 17:6<1 2015 17 10544