IFEG   20353
INSTITUTO DE FISICA ENRIQUE GAVIOLA
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Optimized microfluidic device for sorting choanoflagelates by speed
Autor/es:
G.L. MIÑO; J. SPARACINO; V. I. MARCONI; A. J. BANCHIO; M. A.R. KOEHL; N. KING; R. STOCKER
Lugar:
Roscoff
Reunión:
Workshop; 2015 International Choanoflagellate Workshop; 2015
Institución organizadora:
Berkeley University, USA
Resumen:
  Under diverse environmental cues, choanoflagelates Salpingoeca rossete can differentiate in two types of solitary swimming cells: (i) slow swimmers with a feeding collar and (ii) fast swimmers with a smaller or absent collar. Furthermore, it is known that under nutrient limiting conditions, choanoflagelates experience a haploid-to-diploid transition, evidenced by the presence of ?gametes? that are morphologically different. Therefore, an interesting question arises: is there a connection between the different swimming cells and the haploid cell (i.e. gametes)? As a first step to understand this possible link, we designed a microfluidic device that performs the sorting of choanoflagellates by speed. In this work, we present a microchannel geometry that was optimized using a phenomenological model for the cell dynamics, numerically solved using a Langevin dynamics scheme.  For this purpose we characterized in detail the motility of both cell types, and use this experimental results as parameters in simulations, that otherwise do not have adjustable parameters. We show preliminary results of the sorting process, comparing experiments with numerical predictions.