Cell cycle synchronization of stem cells using inertial microfluidics

Abstract

Cell cycle synchronization is of paramount importance for studying cellular properties and biological processes involved in various stages of the cell cycle. Here, we present a microfluidics based approach to synchronize the cell cycle of a primary - cells, human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs), using inertial forces in spiral microchan-nels. The device operating principle exploits the relationship between the volume (and thus diameter) of a cell and its phase in the cell cycle, in order to fractionate hMSCs populations into synchronized subpopulations enriched in cell cycle fractions of G0/G1, S and G2/M phases.