Dielectrophoresis: A Review of Applications for Stem Cell Research

Abstract

Dielectrophoresis can discriminate distinct cellular identities in heterogeneous populations, and monitor cell state changes associated with activation and clonal expansion, apoptosis, and necrosis, without the need for biochemical labels. Demonstrated capabilities include the enrichment of haematopoetic stem cells from bone marrow and peripheral blood, and adult stem cells from adipose tissue. Recent research suggests that this technique can predict the ultimate fate of neural stem cells after differentiation before the appearance of specific cell-surface proteins. This review summarises the properties of cells that contribute to their dielectrophoretic behaviour, and their relevance to stem cell research and translational applications.

Review Article—Dielectrophoresis: Status of the theory, technology, and applications

“…This will influence the value observed for f xo1 , which has important implications for applying DEP to characterize and selectively isolate target cells from other cells. [249][250][251][252] …”

Estimation of the physical properties of neurons and glial cells using dielectrophoresis crossover frequency

“…Despite all these efforts, the dielectric properties of many mammalian cells have yet to be determined accurately because of the vast variety of cell types; the values of those that have been reported in the literature vary widely [1,2,8,10]. Specifically, the determination of the dielectric properties of neurons and glial cells, for instance, will vastly facilitate the characterization, separation and manipulation of these cells and potentially, their stem cells [11,12]. The comparison between the dielectric properties of neuronal and glial stem cells and their progenies opens another door to study the neural stem cell differentiation process [11,12].…”

“…Specifically, the determination of the dielectric properties of neurons and glial cells, for instance, will vastly facilitate the characterization, separation and manipulation of these cells and potentially, their stem cells [11,12]. The comparison between the dielectric properties of neuronal and glial stem cells and their progenies opens another door to study the neural stem cell differentiation process [11,12]. Additionally, the cellular separation and purification processes enable cell-specific studies such as neuronal action potential detection [13] and the isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTC) from blood cells [14].…”

“…The ability to determine cell dielectric properties with DEP has been demonstrated previously by several research groups, such as Mahaworasilpa et al [18], where a dielectrophoretic (DEP) force on single cells in AC electric fields was measured to analyze cell movement. In addition, the measurement of DEP crossover frequency (CF), namely the frequency occurring on the transition between positive DEP (cells attracted to the maximum electric field area) and negative DEP (cells repelled to the minimum electric field area), has been extensively applied by Pethig et al [12,17], Gascoyne et al [19,20], Voldman et al [21,22] and Gagnon et al [15,23], to characterize and separate multiple cell types.…”

“…For instance, the work reported by Pethig et al [12,17] and Gascoyne et al [20,24] determined the effective cell membrane capacitance from the slope of the plots of CF versus the medium conductivity based on a low-frequency (DC) approximation of Schwan [25], to represent the effective permittivity and conductivity of a cell. However, this DC approximation can only be applied when the CF measurement is performed in a medium with lower conductivity (e.g., <10 −3 Sm −1 ), where the measured CF is sufficiently lower than the dispersion frequency (∼1 MHz) [26,27], which is usually associated with the internal polarization between the cell membrane and cytoplasm.…”