Dielectrophoretic Immobilization of Yeast Cells Using CMOS Integrated Microfluidics.

Honeyeh Matbaechi Ettehad,Ralph Hölzel,Christian Wenger,Pouya Soltani Zarrin

doi:10.3390/mi11050501

Abstract

This paper presents a dielectrophoretic system for the immobilization and separation of live and dead cells. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a promising and efficient investigation technique for the development of novel lab-on-a-chip devices, which characterizes cells or particles based on their intrinsic and physical properties. Using this method, specific cells can be isolated from their medium carrier or the mixture of cell suspensions (e.g., separation of viable cells from non-viable cells). Main advantages of this method, which makes it favorable for disease (blood) analysis and diagnostic applications are, the preservation of the cell properties during measurements, label-free cell identification, and low set up cost. In this study, we validated the capability of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated microfluidic devices for the manipulation and characterization of live and dead yeast cells using dielectrophoretic forces. This approach successfully trapped live yeast cells and purified them from dead cells. Numerical simulations based on a two-layer model for yeast cells flowing in the channel were used to predict the trajectories of the cells with respect to their dielectric properties, varying excitation voltage, and frequency.

Highlights

Cell characterization and manipulation are critical when it comes to clinical and diagnostic applications [1]
To avoid the contact of cell population suspended in a liquid carrier with electronics of the chip, a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic channel fabricated above the sensors on top of the bipolar complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (BiCMOS) device
We investigated a 5 × 5 mm2 complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated silicon microfluidic device utilizing six various interdigitated electrode arrays (IDEs), with different geometrical ratios, for the immobilization and separation of live and dead yeast cells using dielectrophoresis

Summary

Introduction

Cell characterization and manipulation are critical when it comes to clinical and diagnostic applications [1]. To avoid the contact of cell population suspended in a liquid carrier with electronics of the chip, a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic channel fabricated above the sensors on top of the BiCMOS device All of these published methods offer opportunities to characterize and detect bio-particles on the same chip. They utilized relatively large-scale setups with polymer-based microfluidic channels that are not compatible with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process flows. We investigated a 5 × 5 mm CMOS integrated silicon microfluidic device utilizing six various IDEs, with different geometrical ratios, for the immobilization and separation of live and dead yeast cells using dielectrophoresis. This paper proposes the adaption of the developed LOC device for the isolation and separation of viable and non-viable yeast cells in a mixture

Microsystem

Results

Dielectrophoretic Separation of Live and Dead Yeast Cells