Direct current insulator‐based dielectrophoretic characterization of erythrocytes: ABO‐Rh human blood typing

Abstract

A microfluidic platform developed for quantifying the dependence of erythrocyte (red blood cell, RBC) responses by ABO-Rh blood type via direct current insulator dielectrophoresis (DC-iDEP) is presented. The PDMS DC-iDEP device utilized a 400 x 170 μm² rectangular insulating obstacle embedded in a 1.46-cm long, 200-μm wide inlet channel to create spatial non-uniformities in direct current (DC) electric field density realized by separation into four outlet channels. The DC-iDEP flow behaviors were investigated for all eight blood types (A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+, AB-, O+, O-) in the human ABO-Rh blood typing system. Three independent donors of each blood type, same donor reproducibility, different conductivity buffers (0.52-9.1 mS/cm), and DC electric fields (17.1-68.5 V/cm) were tested to investigate separation dependencies. The data analysis was conducted from image intensity profiles across inlet and outlet channels in the device. Individual channel fractions suggest that the dielectrophoretic force experienced by the cells is dependent on erythrocyte antigen expression. Two different statistical analysis methods were conducted to determine how distinguishable a single blood type was from the others. Results indicate that channel fraction distributions differ by ABO-Rh blood types suggesting that antigens present on the erythrocyte membrane polarize differently in DC-iDEP fields. Under optimized conductivity and field conditions, certain blind blood samples could be sorted with low misclassification rates.

A new approach to design an efficient micropost array for enhanced direct-current insulator-based dielectrophoretic trapping

“…The ions from the double layer are attracted to the negative electrode, producing an electroosmotic liquid flow (EO), described by the Helmholtz-Smulochowski equation according to which, theelectroosmotic velocity [16] is:…”

“…In DC-iDEP the frequency is zero, therefore the Clausius-Mossotti factor depends only on particle and medium conductivities [16] = − + 2 ( 4)…”

“…The Helmholtz-Smoluchowski equation describes also the electrophoretic EP experienced particle velocity [16] …”

“…These devices are more appropriate for metal-sensitive organic samples. The iDEP microdevices including two separated electrodes in inlet and outlet have been successfully employed for different applications: separation and concentration of live and dead bacteria [13][14] separation of white blood cells [15], red blood cells (RBC) [16] or blood cell separation in a sawtooth microchannel [17] (see the review [18]). …”

Development of a 3D Graphene Electrode Dielectrophoretic Device

“…Advantages of utilizing graphene paper are versatility of physical and chemical properties, reduced expense, and the graphene nanoplatelets can concurrently act as biosensors to detect a wide range of bioanalytes 24 . Long-term goals of high throughput 3D DEP systems are to rapidly identify cell types [25][26][27] , or achieve label-free, electrically mediated cell sorting of diseased cells from populations of healthy cells 28 . This paper demonstrates material optimization and device preparation and operation followed by illustration and analysis of typical results.…”