Isolation of neural cell subsets using a fast and gentle microfluidic cell sorter results in highly viable cells that can be used for downstream culture, imaging, and transcriptomics

Introduction

Recovering highly viable and pure populations of neural cell subtypes from brain tissue has been historically challenging. The high pressure, long fluidics pathway, electrostatic charges, and long processing times of traditional jet-in-air/droplet-based sorters are often not well tolerated by neural cells and can have significant negative effects on the cells’ ability to perform in downstream assays. We were able to overcome these challenges by using a proven, automatic dissociation technique that utilizes mild enzymatic and mechanical mechanisms to dissociate the tissue in combination with a gentle microfluidic cartridge and microchip-based sorting technology to isolate cell subtypes. Here we show the successful isolation of astrocytes, neurons, and microglia with downstream culture, immunofluorescence microscopy, and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data.

Authors: Megan Ciarlo, Evelyn Rodriguez-Mesa, Rachel Barhouma, Vuong Tran, Archita Gadkari, and Joe Musmacker