Distinguishing cells using electro-acoustic spinning

Abstract

Many diseases, including cancer and covid, result in altered mechanical and electric properties of the affected cells. These changes were proposed as disease markers. Current methods to characterize such changes either provide very limited information on many cells or have extremely low throughput. We introduce electro-acoustic spinning (EAS). Cells were found to spin in combined non-rotating AC electric and acoustic fields. The rotation velocity in EAS depends critically on a cell's electrical and mechanical properties. In contrast to existing methods, the rotation is uniform in the field of view and hundreds of cells can be characterized simultaneously. We demonstrate that EAS can distinguish cells with only minor differences in electric and mechanical properties, including differences in age or the number of passages.