Fabrication of a membrane filter with controlled pore shape and its application to cell separation and strong single cell trapping

Abstract

A porous membrane filter is one of the key components for sample preparation in lab-on-a-chip applications. However, most of the membranes reported to date have only been used for size- based separation since it is difficult to provide functionality to the membrane or improve the performance of the membrane. In this work, as a method to functionalize the membrane filter, controlling the shape of the membrane pores is suggested, and a convenient and mass-producible fabrication method is provided. With the proposed method, membrane filters with round, conical and funnel shape pores were successfully fabricated, and we demonstrated that the sidewall slope of the conical shape pores could be precisely controlled. To verify that the membrane filter can be functionalized by controlled pore shape, we investigated filtration and trapping performance of the membrane filter with conical shape pores. In a filtration test of 1000 cancer cells (MCF-7, a breast cancer cell line) spiked in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) solution, 77% of the total cancer cells were retained on the membrane, and each cell from among 99.3% of the retained cells was automatically isolated in a single conical pore during the filtration process. Thanks to its engineered pore shape, trapping ability of the membrane with conical pores is dramatically improved. Microparticles trapped in the conical pores maintain their locations without any losses even at a more than 30 times faster external flow rate com-pared with those mounted on conventional cylindrical pores. Also, 78% of the cells trapped in the conical pores withstand an external flow of over 300 mu l min(-1) whereas only 18% of the cells trapped in the cylindrical pores remain on the membrane after 120 mu l min(-1) of an external flow is applied.