Acousto-dielectric tweezers for size-insensitive manipulation and biophysical characterization of single cells

The intrinsic biophysical properties of cells, such as mechanical, acoustic, and electrical properties, are valuable indicators of a cell’s function and state. However, traditional single-cell biophysical characterization methods are hindered by limited measurable properties, time-consuming procedur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biosensors & bioelectronics 2023-03, Vol.224, p.115061-115061, Article 115061
Main Authors: Shen, Liang, Tian, Zhenhua, Zhang, Jinxin, Zhu, Haodong, Yang, Kaichun, Li, Teng, Rich, Joseph, Upreti, Neil, Hao, Nanjing, Pei, Zhichao, Jin, Geonsoo, Yang, Shujie, Liang, Yaosi, Chaohui, Wang, Huang, Tony Jun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustics
Acousto-dielectric tweezers
Acoustofluidics
Biosensing Techniques
Cell biophysical characterization
Cytoplasm
Electric Conductivity
Size-insensitive manipulation
Sound
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Summary:The intrinsic biophysical properties of cells, such as mechanical, acoustic, and electrical properties, are valuable indicators of a cell’s function and state. However, traditional single-cell biophysical characterization methods are hindered by limited measurable properties, time-consuming procedures, and complex system setups. This study presents acousto-dielectric tweezers that leverage the balance between controllable acoustophoretic and dielectrophoretic forces applied on cells through surface acoustic waves and alternating current electric fields, respectively. Particularly, the balanced acoustophoretic and dielectrophoretic forces can trap cells at equilibrium positions independent of the cell size to differentiate between various cell-intrinsic mechanical, acoustic, and electrical properties. Experimental results show our mechanism has the potential for applications in single-cell analysis, size-insensitive cell separation, and cell phenotyping, which are all primarily based on cells’ intrinsic biophysical properties. Our results also show the measured equilibrium position of a cell can inversely determine multiple biophysical properties, including membrane capacitance, cytoplasm conductivity, and acoustic contrast factor. With these features, our acousto-dielectric tweezing mechanism is a valuable addition to the resources available for biophysical property-based biological and medical research. •Establish an acousto-dielectric tweezing mechanism.•High-throughput single cell measurement of acousto-dielectric factor.•Separate different kinds of cells with the same diameter distribution.•Concurrent acoustic and electrical properties measurement of single cells.
ISSN:0956-5663
1873-4235
DOI:10.1016/j.bios.2023.115061