Label-free enrichment of MCF7 breast cancer cells from leukocytes using continuous flow dielectrophoresis.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) present in the bloodstream are strongly linked to the invasive behavior of cancer; therefore, their detection holds great significance for monitoring disease progression. Currently available CTC isolation tools are often based on tumor-specific antigen or cell size approaches. However, these techniques are limited due to the lack of a unique and universal marker for CTCs, and the overlapping size between CTCs and regular blood cells. Dielectrophoresis (DEP), governed by the intrinsic dielectric properties of the particles, is a promising marker-free, accurate, fast, and low-cost technique that enables the isolation of CTCs from blood cells. This study presents a continuous flow, antibody-free DEP-based microfluidic device to concentrate MCF7 breast cancer cells, a well-established CTC model, in the presence of leukocytes extracted from human blood samples. The enrichment strategy was determined according to the DEP responses of the corresponding cells, obtained in our previously reported DEP spectrum study. It was based on the positive-DEP integrated with hydrodynamic focusing under continuous flow. In the proposed device, the parylene microchannel with two inlets and outlets was built on top of rectangular and equally spaced isolated planar electrodes rotated certain degree relative to the main flow (13°). The recovery of MCF7 cells mixed with leukocytes was 74%-98% at a frequency of 1 MHz and a magnitude of 10-12 Vpp . Overall, the results revealed that the presented system successfully concentrates MCF7 cancer cells from leukocytes, ultimately verifying our DEP spectrum study, in which the enrichment frequency and separation strategy of the microfluidic system were determined.

A microfluidic device enabling drug resistance analysis of leukemia cells via coupled dielectrophoretic detection and impedimetric counting.

We report the development of a lab-on-a-chip system, that facilitates coupled dielectrophoretic detection (DEP-D) and impedimetric counting (IM-C), for investigating drug resistance in K562 and CCRF-CEM leukemia cells without (immuno) labeling. Two IM-C units were placed upstream and downstream of the DEP-D unit for enumeration, respectively, before and after the cells were treated in DEP-D unit, where the difference in cell count gave the total number of trapped cells based on their DEP characteristics. Conductivity of the running buffer was matched the conductivity of cytoplasm of wild type K562 and CCRF-CEM cells. Results showed that DEP responses of drug resistant and wild type K562 cells were statistically discriminative (at p = 0.05 level) at 200 mS/m buffer conductivity and at 8.6 MHz working frequency of DEP-D unit. For CCRF-CEM cells, conductivity and frequency values were 160 mS/m and 6.2 MHz, respectively. Our approach enabled discrimination of resistant cells in a group by setting up a threshold provided by the conductivity of running buffer. Subsequent selection of drug resistant cells can be applied to investigate variations in gene expressions and occurrence of mutations related to drug resistance.

A Prominent Cell Manipulation Technique in BioMEMS: Dielectrophoresis.

BioMEMS, the biological and biomedical applications of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), has attracted considerable attention in recent years and has found widespread applications in disease detection, advanced diagnosis, therapy, drug delivery, implantable devices, and tissue engineering. One of the most essential and leading goals of the BioMEMS and biosensor technologies is to develop point-of-care (POC) testing systems to perform rapid prognostic or diagnostic tests at a patient site with high accuracy. Manipulation of particles in the analyte of interest is a vital task for POC and biosensor platforms. Dielectrophoresis (DEP), the induced movement of particles in a non-uniform electrical field due to polarization effects, is an accurate, fast, low-cost, and marker-free manipulation technique. It has been indicated as a promising method to characterize, isolate, transport, and trap various particles. The aim of this review is to provide fundamental theory and principles of DEP technique, to explain its importance for the BioMEMS and biosensor fields with detailed references to readers, and to identify and exemplify the application areas in biosensors and POC devices. Finally, the challenges faced in DEP-based systems and the future prospects are discussed.

A Novel Microfluidic Method Utilizing a Hydrofoil Structure to Improve Circulating Tumor Cell Enrichment: Design and Analytical Validation.

Being one of the major pillars of liquid biopsy, isolation and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) during cancer management provides critical information on the evolution of cancer and has great potential to increase the success of therapies. In this article, we define a novel strategy to effectively enrich CTCs from whole blood based on size, utilizing a spiral microfluidic channel embedded with a hydrofoil structure at the downstream of the spiral channel. The hydrofoil increases the distance between the streams of CTCs and peripheral blood cells, which are already distributed about two focal axes by the spiral channel, thereby improving the resolution of the separation. Analytical validation of the system has been carried out using Michigan Cancer Foundation-7 (MCF7) breast cancer cell lines spiked into blood samples from healthy donors, and the performance of the system in terms of white blood cell (WBC) depletion, CTC recovery rate and cell viability has been shown in single or two-step process: by passing the sample once or twice through the microfluidic chip. Single step process yielded high recovery (77.1%), viable (84.7%) CTCs. When the collected cell suspension is re-processed by the same chip, recovery decreases to 65.5%, while the WBC depletion increases to 88.3%, improving the purity. Cell viability of >80% was preserved after two-step process. The novel microfluidic chip is a good candidate for CTC isolation applications requiring high recovery rate and viability, including functional downstream analyses for variety of cancer types.

Examination of the dielectrophoretic spectra of MCF7 breast cancer cells and leukocytes.

The detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in blood is crucial to assess metastatic progression and to guide therapy. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a powerful cell surface marker-free method that allows intrinsic dielectric properties of suspended cells to be exploited for CTC enrichment/isolation from blood. Design of a successful DEP-based CTC enrichment/isolation system requires that the DEP response of the targeted particles should accurately be known. This paper presents a DEP spectrum method to investigate the DEP spectra of cells without directly analyzing their membrane and cytoplasmic properties in contrast to the methods in literature, which employ theoretical assumptions and complex modeling. Integrating electric field simulations based on DEP theory with the experimental data enables determination of the DEP spectra of leukocyte subpopulations, polymorphonuclear and mononuclear leukocytes, and MCF7 breast cancer cells as a model of CTC due to their metastatic origin over the frequency range 100 kHz-50 MHz at 10 Vpp . In agreement with earlier findings, differential DEP responses were detected for mononuclear and polymorphonuclear leukocytes due to the richness of the cell surface features and morphologies of the different leukocyte types. The data reveal that the strength of the DEP force exerted on MCF7 cells was particularly high between 850 kHz and 20 MHz. These results illustrate that the proposed technique has the potential to provide a generic platform to identify DEP responses of different biological particles.

The cytotoxic evaluation of mineral trioxide aggregate and bioaggregate in the subcutaneous connective tissue of rats

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the cytotoxic effects of ProRoot MTA and DiaRoot BA, a bioceramic nanoparticulate cement, on subcutaneous rat tissue. Study Design: Fifty Sprouge Dawley rats were used in this study. Polyethylene tubes filled with ProRoot MTA and DiaRoot BioAggregate, along with a control group of empty, were implanted into dorsal connective tissue of rats for 7, 15, 30, 60, and 90 days. After estimated time intervals the rats were sacrificed. The specimens were fixed, stained with hematoxylin and eosin, and then evaluated under a light microscope for inflammatory reactions and mineralization. Results: All groups evoked a severe to moderate chronic inflammatory reaction at 7 and 15 days, which decreased with time. Both the MTA and BioAggregate groups showed similar inflammatory reactions, except at 90 days when MTA showed statistically significant greater inflammation (p>0.05). The MTA group showed foreign body reaction at all times. Compared to BioAggregate, MTA showed significantly more foreign body reaction at 60 and 90 days (p<0.0001). After 30 days foreign body reaction of BioAggregate decreased significantly. Both MTA and BioAggregate groups showed similar necrosis at 7 and 15 days (p=0.094 and p=0.186 respectively). No necrosis was observed after 15 days. Similarly there was no fibrosis after 30 days for both MTA and BioAggregate groups (p>0.05). Conclusions: Since DiaRoot BioAggregate showed significantly better results than MTA, we can conclude that it is more biocompatible. However, further studies are required to confirm this result (AU)

The cytotoxic evaluation of mineral trioxide aggregate and bioaggregate in the subcutaneous connective tissue of rats.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the cytotoxic effects of ProRoot MTA and DiaRoot BA, a bioceramic nanoparticulate cement, on subcutaneous rat tissue. STUDY DESIGN: Fifty Sprouge Dawley rats were used in this study. Polyethylene tubes filled with ProRoot MTA and DiaRoot BioAggregate, along with a control group of empty, were implanted into dorsal connective tissue of rats for 7, 15, 30, 60, and 90 days. After estimated time intervals the rats were sacrificed. The specimens were fixed, stained with hematoxylin and eosin, and then evaluated under a light microscope for inflammatory reactions and mineralization. RESULTS: All groups evoked a severe to moderate chronic inflammatory reaction at 7 and 15 days, which decreased with time. Both the MTA and BioAggregate groups showed similar inflammatory reactions, except at 90 days when MTA showed statistically significant greater inflammation (p>0.05). The MTA group showed foreign body reaction at all times. Compared to BioAggregate, MTA showed significantly more foreign body reaction at 60 and 90 days (p<0.0001). After 30 days foreign body reaction of BioAggregate decreased significantly. Both MTA and BioAggregate groups showed similar necrosis at 7 and 15 days (p=0.094 and p=0.186 respectively). No necrosis was observed after 15 days. Similarly there was no fibrosis after 30 days for both MTA and BioAggregate groups (p>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Since DiaRoot BioAggregate showed significantly better results than MTA, we can conclude that it is more biocompatible. However, further studies are required to confirm this result.