A fully-automated and portable leukocyte separation platform was developed based on a new type of inertial microfluidic device, multi-dimensional double spiral (MDDS) device, as an alternative to centrifugation. By combining key innovations in inertial microfluidic device designs and check-valve-based recirculation processes, highly purified and concentrated WBCs (up to >99.99% RBC removal, ∼80% WBC recovery, >85% WBC purity, and ∼12-fold concentrated WBCs compared to the input sample) were achieved in less than 5 minutes, with high reliability and repeatability (coefficient of variation, CV < 5%). Using this, one can harvest up to 0.4 million of intact WBCs from 50 μL of human peripheral blood (50 μL), without any cell damage or phenotypic changes in a fully-automated operation. Alternatively, hand-powered operation is demonstrated with comparable separation efficiency and speed, which eliminates the need for electricity altogether for truly field-friendly sample preparation. The proposed platform is therefore highly deployable for various point-of-care applications, including bedside assessment of the host immune response and blood sample processing in resource-limited environments.

中文翻译：

---

使用多维双螺旋 (MDDS) 惯性微流体的全自动和可现场部署的血液白细胞分离平台

基于新型惯性微流体装置多维双螺旋 (MDDS) 装置开发了一种全自动便携式白细胞分离平台，作为离心的替代方法。通过结合惯性微流体装置设计和基于止回阀的再循环过程中的关键创新，高度纯化和浓缩的 WBC（高达 >99.99% 的 RBC 去除率、~80% 的 WBC 回收率、>85% 的 WBC 纯度和~12 倍浓缩与输入样本相比的 WBC 在不到 5 分钟的时间内获得，具有高可靠性和可重复性（变异系数，CV < 5%）。使用它，可以从 50 μL 的人外周血 (50 μL) 中收集多达 40 万个完整的 WBC，而不会在全自动操作中造成任何细胞损伤或表型变化。或者，证明了手动操作具有可比的分离效率和速度，从而完全消除了对电力的需求，从而实现真正的现场友好型样品制备。因此，所提出的平台可高度部署用于各种护理点应用，包括宿主免疫反应的床边评估和资源有限环境中的血液样本处理。