Hydrodynamic stretching of single cells for high-throughput vector-free intracellular delivery of macromolecules

We present a novel high-throughput vector-free macromolecule intracellular delivery microfluidic platform. The platform inertially focuses cells into the channel center and then guides them to be uniformly stretched via extensional flow near stagnation point. Hydrodynamic cell deformation creates nanopores on cellular and nuclear membranes that facilitate the transport of exogenous materials into the cell cytoplasm. The presented approach can effectively deliver a wide range of nanoscopic cargos to different cell types with high efficiency while maintaining high cell viability. This hydroporation method through cell stretching shows superior delivery efficiency, is high-throughput, simple, low-cost and clogging-free, and has high controllability.