School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Electrophoresis. 2013 May;34(9-10):1407-14. doi: 10.1002/elps.201200659. Epub 2013 Apr 12.
Dielectrophoresis is a versatile tool for the sorting, immobilization, and characterization of cells in microfluidic systems. The performance of dielectrophoretic systems strongly relies on the configuration of microelectrodes, which produce a nonuniform electric field. However, once fabricated, the microelectrodes cannot be reconfigured to change the characteristics of the system. Here, we show that the reorientation of the microfluidic channel with respect to the microelectrodes can be readily utilized to alter the characteristics of the system. This enables us to change the location and density of immobilized viable cells across the channel, release viable cells along customized numbers of streams within the channel, change the deflection pattern of nonviable cells along the channel, and improve the sorting of viable and nonviable cells in terms of flow throughput and efficiency of the system. We demonstrate that the reorientation of the microfluidic channel is an effective tool to create versatile dielectrophoretic platforms using the same microelectrode design.
介电泳是一种用于微流控系统中细胞分选、固定和特征分析的多功能工具。介电泳系统的性能强烈依赖于产生非均匀电场的微电极的配置。然而，一旦制造完成，微电极就无法重新配置以改变系统的特性。在这里，我们表明，微流道相对于微电极的重新定向可以很容易地用于改变系统的特性。这使我们能够改变通道中固定的活细胞的位置和密度，沿通道的预定数量的流释放活细胞，改变非活细胞在通道中的偏折模式，并提高活细胞和非活细胞的分选效率。我们证明了微流道的重新定向是一种有效的工具，可使用相同的微电极设计创建多功能介电泳平台。
