Shape-based separation of synthetic microparticles

Peter L Mage; Andrew T Csordas; Tyler Brown; Daniel Klinger; Michael Eisenstein; Samir Mitragotri; Craig Hawker; H Tom Soh

doi:10.1038/s41563-018-0244-9

Shape-based separation of synthetic microparticles

Nat Mater. 2019 Jan;18(1):82-89. doi: 10.1038/s41563-018-0244-9. Epub 2018 Dec 10.

Authors

Peter L Mage^{1

2

3}, Andrew T Csordas⁴, Tyler Brown^{5

6}, Daniel Klinger^{7

8}, Michael Eisenstein^{2

9}, Samir Mitragotri^{10

11}, Craig Hawker^{12

13

14}, H Tom Soh^{15

16

17

18}

Affiliations

¹ Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
² Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
³ BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA, USA.
⁴ Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
⁵ Interdepartmental Program in Biomolecular Science and Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
⁶ John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁷ Materials Research Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
⁸ Institut für Pharmazie, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
⁹ Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
¹⁰ John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. mitragotri@seas.harvard.edu.
¹¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. mitragotri@seas.harvard.edu.
¹² Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. hawker@mrl.ucsb.edu.
¹³ Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. hawker@mrl.ucsb.edu.
¹⁴ Materials Research Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. hawker@mrl.ucsb.edu.
¹⁵ Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. tsoh@stanford.edu.
¹⁶ Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. tsoh@stanford.edu.
¹⁷ Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. tsoh@stanford.edu.
¹⁸ Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. tsoh@stanford.edu.

PMID: 30542094
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-018-0244-9

Abstract

The functional properties of colloidal materials can be tailored by tuning the shape of their constituent particles. Unfortunately, a reliable, general methodology for purifying colloidal materials solely based on shape is still lacking. Here we exploit the single-particle analysis and sorting capabilities of the fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) instrument, a commonly used tool in biomedical research, and demonstrate the ability to separate mixtures of synthetic microparticles based solely on their shape with high purity. We achieve this by simultaneously obtaining four independent optical scattering signals from the FACS instrument to create shape-specific 'scattering signatures' that can be used for particle classification and sorting. We demonstrate that these four-dimensional signatures can overcome the confounding effects of particle orientation on shape-based characterization. Using this strategy, robust discrimination of particles differing only slightly in shape and an efficient selection of desired shapes from mixtures comprising particles of diverse sizes and materials is demonstrated.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't