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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Jan 7.
Published in final edited form as: Lab Chip. 2015 Jan 7;15(1):339–350. doi: 10.1039/c4lc01126k

Figure 4. Dissociation of tumor spheroids.

Figure 4

Tumor spheroids were grown with different cell lines using the hanging drop method and passed directly through the microfluidic dissociation device at 12.5 mL/min for a total of 1, 3, or 10 passes. Control spheroids were treated with trypsin-EDTA, vortexed, and pipetted. (A) For HCT 116 spheroids, total recovery was only 60% of the control after a single pass. Additional device passes decreased total recovery, but did shift the population to higher single cell percentages that were similar to the control. (B) Total and single cell recoveries scaled with initial spheroid concentration, even down to a single spheroid. Results for (C) NCI-H1650 lung cancer and (D) LS 174T spheroids were similar, but with lower total recoveries even after 10 passes. All total count results were normalized to the maximum count determined by fully digesting each spheroid type with trypsin. Error represent the standard error from at least three independent experiments.