Dielectrophoresis as a tool for electrophysiological characterization of stem cells

Abstract

Dielectrophoresis (DEP), a nonlinear electrokinetic technique caused by Maxwell–Wagner interfacial polarization of neutral particles in an electrolyte solution, is a powerful cell manipulation method used widely for various applications such as enrichment, trapping, and sorting of heterogeneous cell populations. While conventional cell characterization and sorting methods require tagging or labeling of cells, DEP has the potential to manipulate cells in a label-free way. Due to its unique ability to characterize and sort cells without the need of labeling, there is renewed interest in using DEP for stem cell research and regenerative medicine. Stem cells have the potential to differentiate into various lineages, but achieving homogeneous cell phenotypes from an initially heterogeneous cell population is a challenge. Using DEP to efficiently and affordably identify, sort, and enrich either undifferentiated or differentiated stem cell populations in a label-free way would advance their potential uses for applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This review summarizes recent, significant research findings regarding the electrophysiological characterization of stem cells, with a focus on cellular dielectric properties, i.e., permittivity and conductivity, and on studies that have obtained these measurements using techniques that preserve cell viability, such as crossover frequency. Potential applications for DEP in regenerative medicine are also discussed. Overall, DEP is a promising technique and, when used to characterize, sort, and enrich stem cells, will advance stem cell-based regenerative therapies.

In vitro dielectrophoresis of HEK cell migration for stimulating chronic wound epithelialization

“…Although conventional cell characterization and sorting methods demand cell tagging or labeling, DEP has the potential to manipulate cells in a label‐free manner [11]. In addition to its ability to characterize and sort cells without labeling, the application of DEP is growing rapidly in developing wound care devices [12]. DEP induces a dipole moment using a nonuniform electric field, because particle charge stability is disrupted and the imbalanced charges surrounding the particles in the medium, create a dipole moment.…”

The Role of Dielectrophoresis for Cancer Diagnosis and Prognosis

“…Since the advantages of DEP include the possibility to eliminate the labeling of the cells and take advantage of their dielectric properties, it has been suggested as a potential application for cancer stem cells (CSCs) detection. DEP can be applied for the detection of many sub-types of stem cells, including mesenchymal cells, neural stem cells, one marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cell, neural stem/progenitor cells and adipose tissue-derived stem cells [ 37 ]. However, for the sorting of CSCs, current DEP applications have been focused on glioblastoma stem cells (GBSCs) [ 25 , 38 ].…”

Dielectrophoretic Characterization of Tenogenically Differentiating Mesenchymal Stem Cells

“…MSCs can be isolated from bone marrow [10], adipose tissue, skin, peripheral blood, and perinatal tissues such as umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, fetal membrane [11,12], and placenta [13]. MSCs are promising for regenerative therapies due to their relative ease of isolation and multipotency [14]. MSCs have been explored to treat several conditions related to cardiovascular health [15][16][17] and other chronic conditions such as lupus, diabetes mellitus, liver cirrhosis, and Crohn's disease [18].…”

“…DEP-based sorters are simple, cost-effective, label-free, accurate, and efficient, overcoming the limitations of current commercial stem cell separation methods. DEP was first used in stem cell research in the 1990s [36][37][38] and has progressed significantly over the past two decades in terms of separation accuracy and efficiency, leading to renewed interest in DEP as a tool to characterize stem cells and their differentiated progeny [14,39].…”

“…Hence, there is a research need to characterize and identify tenogenic differentiation potential and also a technique that distinguishes undifferentiated MSCs from their differentiating progeny. Here, we evaluate DEP, a powerful technique for cell characterization and separation, which had been in practice for several decades [14]. However, to our knowledge, no studies have used DEP to characterize the tenogenesis of MSCs.…”