Neuroscience student rapidly separates cells

Tiantian Jin, a PhD candidate from the Centre for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Wollongong (UOW), is examining the role of neurons and glial cells (cells which surround neurons) in the development and therapy of schizophrenia. He recently collaborated with Professor Weihua Li and fellow UOW PhD students to develop a device that effectively and efficiently separates purified neurons from other types of cells.

“While neurons and glial cells both play significant roles in the development and therapy of schizophrenia, their specific contributions are difficult to differentiate because the methods used to separate neurons and glial cells are ineffective and inefficient,” the team wrote in the journal Biomicrofluidics. While traditional medium-based methods make cell separation a difficult task, alternative techniques involve labelling individual cells — a costly, labour-intensive process that can damage the cells being investigated.

The UOW team looked to go in a different direction, utilising technology known as inertial microfluidics, which relies on intrinsic hydrodynamic forces, to create an inertial microchip. When used in a common infusion pump, this was able to rapidly and continuously separate neurons and glial cells from dissected animal brain tissues by collecting more neuron samples at once.

(a) Overall workflow of the device, including the dissection of mouse pups, trypsinisation of mouse brains, injection of cells into the inertial microchip and culturing separated cells for various downstream immunostaining and PCP tests. (b) Schematics of inertial separation of neuron and glial cells in the inertial microchip with a symmetrical serpentine channel. Large neuron cells migrate into the outlet middle, while most of the smaller glial cells are collected in the outlet aside.

The device proved to be biocompatible, with the separated neurons retaining their health and function. And apart from isolating the neurons — which will be used for a primary cell culture study with the maintenance of their normal function and for drug testing, according to Jin — purified and enriched viable glial cells were also collected simultaneously.

“As glial cell dysfunction is increasingly being linked to mental disease development, this device could be widely applied in glial cell studies in the future,” said Jin. “It avoids using extra brain tissues and culture mediums, saving both time and money, and could be used by researchers to improve the molecular characterisation of biological functions or gene expression of specific drug therapy.

“Our long-term vision would be to apply these methods in cell transplantation,” Jin continued. “Just like stem cells can be transplanted to promote growth, glial cell transplantation could be introduced to support neurogenesis.”