Separation of model mixtures of epsilon-globin positive fetal nucleated red blood cells and anucleate erythrocytes using a microfluidic device.

Microfluidic devices are capable of separating microparticles and cells. We developed and tested the efficiency of silicon cross-flow microfilters for the separation of primitive fetal nucleated red blood cells (FNRBCs) and adult anucleate red blood cell (AARBCs) from model mixtures. Stepwise improvements over three generations of device design resulted in an increasing trend in the recovery of FNRBCs. We obtained a recovery of FNRBCs (74.0+/-6.3%, p<0.05, n=5) using the third generation device, with a depletion of 46.5+/-3.2% AARBCs from the cell mixture. The purity of FNRBCs in the enriched fraction was enhanced by a factor of 1.7-fold.