Tornado-Inspired Acoustic Vortex Tweezer for Trapping and Manipulating Microbubbles
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Tornado-inspired acoustic vortex tweezer for trapping and manipulating microbubbles Wei-Chen Loa, Ching-Hsiang Fanb,c, Yi-Ju Hoa, Chia-Wei Lina, and Chih-Kuang Yeha,d,1 aDepartment of Biomedical Engineering and Environmental Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, 30013 Taiwan; bDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, 701 Taiwan; cMedical Device Innovation Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, 701 Taiwan; and dInstitute of Nuclear Engineering and Sciences, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, 30013 Taiwan Edited by Robert Langer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, and approved December 9, 2020 (received for review November 17, 2020) Spatially concentrating and manipulating biotherapeutic agents tweezers are standing-wave tweezers (17–19), single-beam within the circulatory system is a longstanding challenge in acoustic tweezers (20–22), and acoustic-streaming tweezers medical applications due to the high velocity of blood flow, which (23–25). Standing-wave tweezers spatially form periodic pressure greatly limits drug leakage and retention of the drug in the targeted nodes to produce acoustic radiation forces that can be used to region. To circumvent the disadvantages of current methods for control the positions of particles (19). Unfortunately, a complex systemic drug delivery, we propose tornado-inspired acoustic vortex setup is needed because the trapped objects need to be located tweezer (AVT) that generates net forces for noninvasive intravascu- between one or more pairs of ultrasound transducers. Single- lar trapping of lipid-shelled gaseous microbubbles (MBs). MBs are beam acoustic tweezers can produce a trapping effect to ma- used in a diverse range of medical applications, including as ultra- nipulate particles and cells under the conditions of Mie regime in sound contrast agents, for permeabilizing vessels, and as drug/gene a single-transducer setup (21, 26). However, high operating carriers. We demonstrate that AVT can be used to successfully trap frequencies are required for this technique because the acoustic MBs and increase their local concentration in both static and flow wavelength needs to be smaller than the size of the trapped conditions. Furthermore, MBs signals within mouse capillaries could particles or cells. Acoustic-streaming tweezers can be used to be locally improved 1.7-fold and the location of trapped MBs could indirectly manipulate particles via acoustic-induced fluid flows still be manipulated during the initiation of AVT. The proposed AVT (also termed acoustic streaming) with oscillating gas-filled technique is a compact, easy-to-use, and biocompatible method that microbubbles (MBs) or solid structures (25). The streaming enables systemic drug administration with extremely low doses. flows generate regions of recirculation or pressure gradients that APPLIED PHYSICAL SCIENCES can be used to influence particle position. The oscillating MBs ultrasound | microbubbles | acoustic tweezers | acoustic vortex | trapping also produce acoustic radiation forces and streaming vortices to trap and rotate particles, respectively. The low spatial resolution ighly diverse drugs have been developed globally in recent is the main drawback of this type of tweezers, because MBs and Hyears, providing the promise of better prevention, treat- microstructure-based phenomena are nonlinear. Although ments, and cures for a broad range of diseases. When drugs are acoustic tweezers have been increasingly used for manipulating systemically administered, accurate targeted delivery of the drug cells, particles, and organisms, there are very few reports of MEDICAL SCIENCES to the diseased cells and tissues at sufficiently high doses is promising results in an in vivo environment. For example, the critical for drug function. For example, it has been reported that single-beam acoustic tweezers could penetrate through an less than 0.7% of an injected drug actually gets into a targeted ex vivo rat aorta and manipulate polystyrene microspheres of 3- tumor (1). The high velocity of blood flow (∼1.5–33 cm/s in μm size inside the vessel (22). However, in order to trap mi- capillaries and venules) is the main obstacle for circulation-based crometer-size particles, it is necessary to operate such acoustic drug delivery because drug leakage and retention in the targeted tweezers with high frequency (∼40 MHz; wavelength: tens of region are limited (2). Developing an approach that can non- micrometers). The poor tissue penetration of such high-fre- invasively concentrate and manipulate circulating drugs to pro- quency ultrasound would largely limit the in vivo application of pel or navigate them against the flow could greatly improve single-beam acoustic tweezers. treatment efficiencies, reduce required administered doses, and avoid off-target effects. Significance Emerging techniques for contactless trapping and manipula- tion of biomolecules such as DNA, cells, nanoparticles, and The retention and accumulation of biotherapeutic agents microparticles with a high spatial resolution typically utilize op- within the circulatory system are difficult due to the high ve- tical, magnetic, or electrokinetic forces (3–11). However, each of locity of the blood flow, which limits drug leakage and drug the current techniques has its own potential drawbacks: 1) op- concentration in the targeted region. Herein, we propose a tical tweezers may cause physiological and heat damage to cells, tornado-inspired acoustic vortex tweezers to noninvasively high photon absorption in biological materials, and the forma- – collect microbubbles for improved local concentration of up to tion of singlet oxygen (9, 12 14); 2) magnetic tweezers require 1.7-fold in vitro and in vivo. This technique enables systemic targets to be prelabeled with magnetic materials, which likely drug administration with extremely low doses. affects cell viability (6, 8, 10, 15); and 3) electrokinetic tweezers can potentially affect cell physiology due to current-induced Author contributions: W.-C.L., C.-H.F., Y.-J.H., C.-W.L., and C.-K.Y. designed research; heating or direct exposure to an electric field (3–5, 16). In other W.-C.L., C.-H.F., Y.-J.H., and C.-W.L. performed research; W.-C.L., C.-H.F., and Y.-J.H. ana- words, these potent bioeffects combined with their short working lyzed data; and W.-C.L., C.-H.F., Y.-J.H., and C.-K.Y. wrote the paper. distances (<1 cm) greatly limit the ability to translate these The authors declare no competing interest. techniques into clinical applications. The safety and tissue-pen- This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. etrating ability (∼20 cm) of ultrasound may provide an alterna- Published under the PNAS license. tive option for developing so-called acoustic tweezers. 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: [email protected]. A substantial number of acoustic-tweezer configurations have This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/ been explored previously for applications in science, engineering, doi:10.1073/pnas.2023188118/-/DCSupplemental. and biomedical sciences. The three primary types of acoustic Published January 6, 2021. PNAS 2021 Vol. 118 No. 4 e2023188118 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023188118 | 1of10 Downloaded by guest on October 2, 2021 Ideal acoustic tweezers for in vivo applications must meet the used to fabricate the AVT transducer. An aperture with a di- following conditions: long penetration depth, strong trapping ameter of 3 mm was drilled in the PZT substrate to create a light force, simple setup, multiaxis manipulation, and tissue safety. path for bright-field microscopy observations (Fig. 2B). The PZT With the aim of meeting these requirements, we focused on a substrate was then carved into four individual elements with a tornado-inspired acoustic vortex tweezer (AVT) concept that we 1-mm kerf on the back electrode using a laser cutter (32). Co- previously demonstrated is feasible (26, 27). AVT employ de- axial signal and ground wires were soldered to the electrodes of structive interference to produce a ring-shaped beam pattern each element, with the entire assembly then sealed in a cylin- called a potential well. According to the force-potential drical plastic shell. The four elements were driven by 3-MHz sine mechanism operating in a Rayleigh regime, particles with high waves to produce pressures of 80–800 kPa. During signal trans- acoustic impedances comparing with blood will experience mission there was a π/2-rad phase difference between adjacent strong trapping forces that drive them toward the beam axis. elements. Based on simulation data, the focal length, focal zone, Here we report on an acoustic-tweezer transducer based on and beam width of the designed transducer were calculated to be ∼ SI Appendix AVT theory that aims to trap and manipulate bioparticles 20, 5, and 1.7 mm, respectively ( , Fig. S1) (33, 34). (lipid-shelled gaseous MBs) within the blood circulation in The acoustic field of the AVT was measured, and its cross- x z y = C vivo (Fig. 1). section in the - plane at 0 is shown in Fig. 2 . The nor- Several studies have demonstrated the diversity of uses for malized distribution of pressure showed that the focal length and MBs in medical applications, such as their use as sonography beam width of AVT were 20 and 1.7 mm, respectively, which was contrast agents, for permeabilization of the blood–brain barrier, consistent with the simulation data. The axial null appeared