Issue 17, 2024

Nanofluidic resistive pulse sensing for characterization of extracellular vesicles

Abstract

This paper describes the development, design and characterization of a resistive pulse sensing (RPS) system for the analysis of size distributions of extracellular vesicles (EVs). The system is based on microfluidic chips fabricated using soft-lithography and operated in pressure-driven mode. This fabrication approach provided reproducible pore dimensions and the best performing chip design enabled, without calibration, sizing of both 252 nm and 460 nm test particles within 8% of theoretically calculated values, based on the size specifications provided by suppliers. The number concentration measurement had higher variations and without calibration provided estimates within an order of magnitude, for sample concentrations across 4 orders of magnitude. The RPS chips could also measure successfully EVs and other biological nanoparticles in purified samples from cell culture media and human serum. A compact, fast and inexpensive RPS system based on this design could be an attractive alternative to current gold-standard techniques for routine characterization of EV samples.

Graphical abstract: Nanofluidic resistive pulse sensing for characterization of extracellular vesicles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Apr 2024
Accepted
10 Jul 2024
First published
25 Jul 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Lab Chip, 2024,24, 4028-4038

Nanofluidic resistive pulse sensing for characterization of extracellular vesicles

M. R. C. Calado, T. C. Lage, D. A. M. André, C. Calaza, C. Marques, C. Herrero, J. Piteira, L. Montelius, D. Y. Petrovykh, L. Diéguez and A. Ainla, Lab Chip, 2024, 24, 4028 DOI: 10.1039/D4LC00364K

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements