Selective delivery of material to cells
AssigneeMassachusetts Institute of Technology
InventorsArmon R. Sharei, Viktor A. Adalsteinsson, Nahyun Cho, Robert S. Langer, J. Christopher Love, Klavs F. Jensen
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Abstract
Isolating or identifying a cell based on a physical property of said cell can include providing a cell suspension; passing said suspension through a microfluidic channel that includes a constriction; passing the cell suspension through the constriction; and, contacting said cell suspension solution with a compound. The constriction can be sized to preferentially deform a relatively larger cell compared to a relatively smaller cell.
Claims32
A method for delivering a compound into a cell based on a physical property of said cell comprising:
- providing a cell suspension comprising a first group of cells and a second group of cells, wherein the first group of cells have a relatively different size, diameter, and/or membrane stiffness than the second group of cells;
- passing said cell suspension through and out of a microfluidic channel that includes a constriction, said constriction being sized to deliver a compound to the first group of cells to a greater extent than the second group of cells, wherein passage through the constriction disrupts the cell membranes of the first group of cells such that the compound is delivered into the first group of cells to a greater extent than the second group of cells in the cell suspension that passes through the microfluidic channel;
- and
- contacting said cell suspension with the compound before the cell suspension is passed through the microfluidic channel that includes the constriction.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.