Microgravity Separation of Alginate Empty Capsules from Encapsulated Pancreatic Islets Using a Microfluidic System

Although microencapsulated pancreatic islets have merits, such as ease of transplantation, viability and functionality improvement, and immune protection in vivo, the co-production of alginate empty capsules during the encapsulation of islets with alginate makes them unusable for biomedical application. In previous research, the removal of empty alginate capsules with high yield was achieved using density-gradient centrifugation. Here, we report advanced microgravity-based separation techniques in a microfluidic format for alginate empty capsules. The optimal separation conditions were mathematically evaluated using Stokes’ law and the separation of the encapsulation product was accomplished. A microfluidic chip was designed with two inlets and two outlets at different elevations to mimic the vertical percoll gradient in density-gradient centrifugation. The separation of alginate empty capsules using microgravitational force resulted in effective separation of encapsulated islets from alginate empty capsules with more than 70% efficiency. Moreover, no loss of encapsulated islets was expected because the process is a one-pot separation, unlike the previous method. This type of microgravitational particle separation could be used both for the fractionization of heterogeneous encapsulated cells and to remove empty capsules.