A Novel Controllable Cell Array Printing Technique on Microfluidic Chips.

Goal: The construction of single-cell array is known as the challenging technology to manipulate cell position and number and accomplish cell analysis in biomedical engineering.

Methods: We put forward a novel controllable cell printing technique for rapid, precise, convenient, high cell viability, multicellular, and high-throughput printing. We also proposed a novel microfluidic device to verify the effectiveness of the printing and study the migration ability and anti-cancer drug responses of cancer cell as important applications.

Results: This technique offered a minimum process time of 5 min, a maximum positional accuracy of 10 μm, 0.1 nL liquid volume level per droplet, above 87% cell viability after seven days and the ability to print different multicellular arrays. We found that the cell compared to cell culture in petri dish after 48 h. In addition, there was a significant different inhibition on cancer cells migration ability and cell drug activities with different concentrations of paclitaxel.

Conclusion: This novel controllable cell array printing technique on the microfluidic platforms provides a useful method with high-quality printing and cell viability for the applications of single-cell analysis and high-throughput drug screening.

Significance: The controllable cell printing technique could apply in many biological processes and biomedical engineering applications, such as cell analysis, cancer development, and drug screening and metabolism. Combined with the microfluidic chips, tissue engineering, and sensors, this technique will be widely used for the construction and analysis of biological and biomedical model.