Isolation and recovery of extracellular vesicles using optically-induced dielectrophoresis on an integrated microfluidic platform

Lab Chip. 2021 Apr 20;21(8):1475-1483. doi: 10.1039/d1lc00093d.

Abstract

Cell-released, membrane-encapsulated extracellular vesicles (EVs) serve as a means of intercellular communication by delivering bioactive cargos including proteins, nucleic acids and lipids. EVs have been widely used for a variety of biomedical applications such as biomarkers for disease diagnosis and drug delivery vehicles for therapy. Herein, this study reports a novel method for label-free, contact-free isolation and recovery of EVs via optically-induced dielectrophoresis (ODEP) on a pneumatically-driven microfluidic platform with minimal human intervention. At an optimal driving frequency of 20 kHz and a voltage of 20 Vpp, an ODEP force from a 75 μm moving light beam was characterized to be 23.5-97.7 fN in 0.2 M sucrose solution. Furthermore, rapid enrichment of EVs with a small volume of only 27 pL in 32 s achieved an increase of 272-fold by dynamically shrinking circular light patterns. Moreover, EVs could be automatically isolated and recovered within 25 min, while achieving a releasing efficiency of 99.8% and a recovery rate of 52.2% by using an integrated microfluidics-based optically-induced EV isolation (OIEV) platform. Given the capacity of label-free, contact-free EV isolation, and automatic, easy-releasing EV recovery, this integrated OIEV platform provides a unique approach for EV-based disease diagnosis and drug delivery applications.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cell Communication
  • Extracellular Vesicles*
  • Humans
  • Lipids
  • Microfluidics
  • Nucleic Acids*

Substances

  • Lipids
  • Nucleic Acids