High-throughput cell-sorting

A new, high-throughput method for sorting cells has been developed, capable of separating 10 billion bacterial cells in 30 minutes. The finding has already proven useful for studying bacterial cells and microalgae, and could one day have direct applications for biomedical research and environmental science -- basically any field in which a large quantity of microbial samples need to be processed.

The new method was described in a September 2014 publication in the scientific journal Analytical Chemistry, "Surface free energy activated high-throughput cell sorting."

The new method relies on a measurement principle that sorts cells by differentiating their characteristic surface free energies.

For liquid surfaces, surface free energy is equal to surface tension. But for solid surfaces, such as the surface of cells, surface free energy cannot be measured directly. Instead, surface free energy for solids was previously estimated using a contact angle measurement with complicated theoretical interpretations.

For details see:

Xinru Zhang, Qian Zhang, Tao Yan, Zeyi Jiang, Xinxin Zhang, Yi Y. Zuo. Surface Free Energy Activated High-Throughput Cell Sorting. Analytical Chemistry, 2014; 86 (18): 9350 DOI: 10.1021/ac503100a

Posted by Tim Sandle