Analysis and synthesis of electrical equivalent circuit of a microfluidic channel for cell characterization

Abstract

In recent days, numerous biological activities including disease progression are understood by understanding the electrical properties of living cells. Numbers of techniques were developed to study the electrical properties of cells with focus on single cell analysis. This budding interest was supported by the emergence of various microfluidic techniques to accomplish low analysis time and reduced equipment cost for characterization of cell's electrical properties, as compared to conventional bulky techniques. In this work, the method for electrical analysis of a microfluidic set up that is used for electrical characterization of living cells is presented. This analysis forms the basis for obtaining the electrical equivalent circuit and hence the electrical characterization of the biological cells. The microfluidic setup consists of a microfluidic channel with biological suspensions such as cells. The choice of elements and their values in the electrical equivalent circuit depend on various parameters, to name a few: the electrical and geometrical properties of the cell, the electrical properties of the fluid flowing in the microfluidic channel and the electrical and geometrical properties of the channel. Apart from these parameters, the type of flow and other fluidic parameters such as viscosity also have substantial contribution in altering the value of electrical parameters of the equivalent circuit.