EFFICIENT MICRODEVICES DESIGNS FOR CHOANOFLAGELLATES SEPARATION

Abstract

Choanoflagellates are microorganisms of great interest in evolutionary biology because they are considered to be the
closest living relatives to animals. In their unicellular form, they developed phenotypes with different swimming strategies and the ability to produce sexual gametes. Based on the work of Sparacino et al., J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. (2020),
new designs of microfluidic devices were proposed and explored with consideration to both microfabrication restrictions
and microscopy observation limitations. Through a phenomenological model, adapted to the dynamics of unicellular
choanoflagellates in an asymmetric microdevice, it was possible to separate the fast cells, reconcentrating them up to 8
times. It was observed in a temporal window independent of the geometry, minimizing the biological variation of the
samples. Furthermore, new biotechnological applications were explored to model different biological behaviors related
to the taxis responses experienced by a cell. It was noted that populations with lower change of direction are efficiently
concentrated in the proposed microdevice.