Fluorescence-Activated Multi-Sorting of Single Cells Utilizing High-Speed on-Chip Flow Control

We present on-chip multi-sorting of single cells by utilizing high-speed flow control with high-resolution. We utilized dual-membrane pumps integrated into a microfluidic chip, which were driven by the piezoelectric actuators. We evaluated the performance of multi-sorting using multi-threshold for fluorescent intensity. As results, we achieved high-speed sorting with the response time of 86 μs (equivalent to 8.6 kHz). We demonstrated on-chip multi-sorting using microbeads and EGFP-expressing cell, and they were successfully sorted into 6 groups based on five thresholds. The presented multi-sorting opens new paradigms of detailed analyses of bioparticles.