Elasto-Inertial Focusing of Mammalian Cells and Bacteria Using Low Molecular, Low Viscosity PEO Solutions

The ability to manipulate biological cells is critical in a diversity of biomedical and industrial applications. Microfluidic-based cell manipulations provide unique opportunities for sophisticated and high-throughput biological assays such as cell sorting, rare cell detection, and imaging flow cytometry. In this respect, cell focusing is an extremely useful functional operation preceding downstream biological analysis, since it allows the accurate lateral and axial positioning of cells moving through microfluidic channels, and thus enables sophisticated cell manipulations in a passive manner. Herein, we explore the utility of viscoelastic carrier fluids for enhanced elasto-inertial focusing of biological species within straight, rectangular cross section microfluidic channels. Since the investigated polymer solutions possess viscosities close to that of water and exhibit negligible shear thinning, focusing occurs over a wide range of elasticity numbers and a large range of Reynolds numbers. With a view to applications in the robust focusing of cells and bacteria, we assess and characterize the influence of accessible focusing parameters, including blockage ratio, volumetric flow rate, cell concentration, and polymer chain length.