A selective release method using electrolytically generated bubbles for cell array applications

This paper describes a method of selective release of particles/cells by bubbles generated by electrolysis. The particles/cells trapped into microchambers that were produced with SU-8 on the top of an electrode of indium tin oxide (ITO) patterned on glass. The bubbles of oxygen and chlorine (or hydrogen) were selectively generated in a target chamber by applying voltage through the electrodes. We successfully released a microbead (100 mum in diameter) confined in the microchamber. Since this method is gentle enough to maintain the cellular activity, we believe that this method will be useful for quantitative analysis of cells in a microarray.