Mechanical properties have emerged as a significant label-free marker for characterizing deformable particles such as cells. Here, we demonstrated the first single-particle-resolved, cytometry-like deformability-activated sorting in the continuous flow on a microfluidic chip. Compared with existing deformability-based sorting techniques, the microfluidic device presented in this work measures the deformability and immediately sorts the particles one-by-one in real time. It integrates the transit-time-based deformability measurement and active hydrodynamic sorting onto a single chip. We identified the critical factors that affect the sorting dynamics by modeling and experimental approaches. We found that the device throughput is determined by the summation of the sensing, buffering, and sorting time. A total time of ~100 ms is used for analyzing and sorting a single particle, leading to a throughput of 600 particles/min. We synthesized poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) hydrogel beads as the deformability model for device validation and performance evaluation. A deformability-activated sorting purity of 88% and an average efficiency of 73% were achieved. We anticipate that the ability to actively measure and sort individual particles one-by-one in a continuous flow would find applications in cell-mechanotyping studies such as correlational studies of the cell mechanical phenotype and molecular mechanism.

机械特性已成为表征可变形颗粒（如细胞）的重要无标记标记。在这里，我们在微流控芯片上的连续流动中展示了第一个单粒子解析的、类似细胞计数的变形激活分选。与现有的基于变形能力的分选技术相比，这项工作中提出的微流体装置测量变形能力并立即实时地逐个分选颗粒。它将基于传输时间的变形性测量和主动流体动力学分选集成到单个芯片上。我们通过建模和实验方法确定了影响分选动态的关键因素。我们发现设备吞吐量是由传感、缓冲和排序时间的总和决定的。大约 100 毫秒的总时间用于分析和分选单个粒子，从而产生 600 个粒子/分钟的吞吐量。我们合成了聚（乙二醇）二丙烯酸酯（PEGDA）水凝胶珠作为设备验证和性能评估的变形模型。实现了 88% 的变形激活分选纯度和 73% 的平均效率。我们预计，在连续流动中一个一个地主动测量和分类单个粒子的能力将在细胞机械分型研究中找到应用，例如细胞机械表型和分子机制的相关研究。实现了 88% 的变形激活分选纯度和 73% 的平均效率。我们预计，在连续流动中一个一个地主动测量和分类单个粒子的能力将在细胞机械分型研究中找到应用，例如细胞机械表型和分子机制的相关研究。实现了 88% 的变形激活分选纯度和 73% 的平均效率。我们预计，在连续流动中一个一个地主动测量和分类单个粒子的能力将在细胞机械分型研究中找到应用，例如细胞机械表型和分子机制的相关研究。