Cell sorting by endocytotic capacity in a microfluidic magnetophoresis device

Magnetically labelled cells are finding a wealth of applications for in vitro analysis as well as in vivo treatments. Sorting of cells into subpopulations based on their magnetite loading is an important step in such procedures. Here, we study the sorting of monocytes and macrophages which internalise nanoparticles to different extents based on their endocytotic capacity. Macrophages featured a high endocytotic activity and were found to internalise between 4 and 60 pg of iron per cell. They were successfully sorted into five subpopulations of narrow iron loading distributions via on-chip free-flow magnetophoresis, thus demonstrating the potential of sorting of relatively similarly loaded cells. Monocytes featured a low endocytotic capacity and took on 1 to 4 pg of iron per cell. Mixtures of monocytes and macrophages were successfully sorted within the free-flow magnetophoresis chip and good purity (> 88%), efficacy (> 60%) and throughput (from 10 to 100 cells s(-1)) could be achieved. The introduced method constitutes a viable tool for studies of endocytotic capacity and sorting/selection of cells based on this functionality.