Temperature-controlled MPa-pressure ultrasonic cell manipulation in a microfluidic chip

Abstract

We study the temperature-independent impact on cell viability of relevant physical parameters during long-term, high-acoustic-pressure ultrasonic exposure in a microfluidic chip designed for ultrasonic-standing-wave trapping and aggregation of cells. We use a light-intensity method and 5 μm polymer beads for accurate acoustic pressure calibration before injecting cells into the device, and we monitor the viability of A549 lung cancer cells trapped during one hour in an ultrasonic standing wave with 1 MPa pressure amplitude. The microfluidic chip is actuated by a novel temperature-controlled ultrasonic transducer capable of keeping the temperature stable around 37 °C with an accuracy better than ±0.2 °C, independently on the ultrasonic power and heat produced by the system, thereby decoupling any temperature effect from other relevant effects on cells caused by the high-pressure acoustic field. We demonstrate that frequency-modulated ultrasonic actuation can produce acoustic pressures of equally high magnitudes as with single-frequency actuation, and we show that A549 lung cancer cells can be exposed to 1 MPa standing-wave acoustic pressure amplitudes for one hour without compromising cell viability. At this pressure level, we also measure the acoustic streaming induced around the trapped cell aggregate, and conclude that cell viability is not affected by streaming velocities of the order of 100 μm s⁻¹. Our results are important when implementing acoustophoresis methods in various clinical and biomedical applications.