Abstract
The increased concern regarding emerging pathogens and antibiotic resistance has drawn interest in the development of rapid and robust microfluidic techniques to analyze microorganisms. The novel parameter known as the electrokinetic equilibrium condition () was presented in recent studies, providing an approach to analyze microparticles in microchannels employing unique electrokinetic (EK) signatures. While the shows great promise, current estimation approaches can be time-consuming or heavily user-dependent for accurate values. The present contribution aims to analyze existing approaches for estimating this parameter and modify the process into an accurate yet simple technique for estimating the EK behavior of microorganisms in insulator-based microfluidic devices. The technique presented here yields the parameter called the empirical electrokinetic equilibrium condition () which works well as a value for initial approximations of trapping conditions in insulator-based EK (iEK) microfluidic systems. A total of six types of microorganisms were analyzed in this study (three bacteria and three bacteriophages). The proposed approach estimated values employing images of trapped microorganisms, yielding high reproducibility (SD 5.0–8.8%). Furthermore, stable trapping voltages (sTVs) were estimated from values for distinct channel designs to test that this parameter is system-independent and good agreement was obtained when comparing estimated sTVs vs. experimental values (SD 0.3–19.6%). The encouraging results from this work were used to generate an EK library of data, available on our laboratory website. The data in this library can be used to design tailored iEK microfluidic devices for the analysis of microorganisms.
Highlights
Insulator-based electrokinetic microfluidic techniques, especially dielectrophoresis (DEP), have been used for a large variety of bioanalytical applications [1]
The present work illustrates a new methodology for estimating the empirical electrokinetic equilibrium condition in insulator-based devices containing posts
In an attempt to simplify this process, Coll De Peña et al [13] presented the second approach in which experiments are conducted in microchannels with insulating posts and relies on determination of the trapping voltage (TV)
Summary
Insulator-based electrokinetic (iEK) microfluidic techniques, especially dielectrophoresis (DEP), have been used for a large variety of bioanalytical applications [1]. Two primary modes of EK microfluidic techniques, electrode-based and insulator-based, have been used in numerous applications with DEP [2]. Electrode-based EK techniques are popular [3,4,5,6] and have demonstrated promising capabilities including the ability to analyze different strains of bacteria in a co-culture and track their behavior [7] and even categorize erythrocytes by their ABO-Rh blood types [8]. IEK microfluidic techniques are generally simpler to fabricate, inexpensive, disposable, and less affected to fouling than traditional electrode-based EK devices. Insulator-based EK microfluidic techniques have been used for the rapid identification, detection, and purification of both viruses [9,10,11].
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