Analogue Fluids for Cell Deformability Studies in Microfluidic Devices

Abstract

This study concerns the development and test of analogue fluids which can be used in tests focused on cell deformability studies. The analogue fluids were characterized in terms of their main physico-chemical properties, the size distribution of the particles (mimicking the cells) and on their deformability. From the various approaches tested here, a solution of water DD with a surfactant (Brij40), giving rise to semi-rigid particles, has shown the greatest potential to be used as an analogue fluid. This analogue fluid depicts a particle size distribution that is representative of the biosamples to be studied in our future work. Furthermore, simple filtering processes allow to narrow the particle size distribution, giving rise to a homogeneous solution with particles depicting sizes and deformability ratios that are compatible with red blood cell preparations. The flow and velocity behaviours of this analogue fluid inside a microchannel also support the potential to use it also as an analogue blood fluid for hemodynamic studies.