Identification and isolation of migratory subpopulations of cancer cells using microfluidics with fluid walls

Jet-printed dumbbell microfluidic environments with optically transparent fluid walls enable isolation of rapidly migrating single prostate cancer cells, using Laplace-pressure confinement.

• Why it matters: Cancer cell migration drives metastasis, but microfluidic studies are hard to adopt because fabrication/operation are complex and retrieving specific migrating cells is difficult.
• What they did: The method uses seconds-fast jet-printing in standard Petri dishes with standard growth media and immiscible oil, then applies transient Laplace-pressure differences to confine prostate cancer cells and bovine serum chemoattractant. Automated live-cell imaging and a machine-learning segmentation model quantify chemotaxis, morphology, and motility, followed by reconfigurable fluid walls to retrieve rapidly migrating single cells.
• The result: Migratory prostate cancer subpopulations with distinct morphologies and motilities are identified and rapidly migrating single cells are isolated, enabling single-cell analysis of heterogeneity linked to metastasis.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.