Isolating Cells from Blood Using Buoyancy Activated Cell Sorting (bacs) with Glass Microbubbles

Obtaining pure cell subpopulations is often the first step for a wide range of applications. Here, we present a generic cell isolation strategy, the “buoyancy activated cell sorting (BACS)”, using glass microbubbles attached with targetspecific antibodies. The design of BACS was centered on the opposite movements of cells and microbubbles during mixing, ultimately improving the capture yield by increasing the number of interactions. Cells labeled with microbubbles will spontaneously float and be isolated without the need for additional separation apparatuses. We demonstrated that more than 99% of CD4 positive cells in whole blood can be isolated in 15 minutes.