Contactless dielectrophoretic spectroscopy: examination of the dielectric properties of cells found in blood

The use of non-invasive methods to detect and enrich circulating tumor cells (CTCs) independent of their genotype is critical for early diagnostic and treatment purposes. The key to using CTCs as predictive clinical biomarkers is their separation and enrichment. This work presents the use of a contactless dielectrophoresis (cDEP) device to investigate the frequency response of cells and calculate their area-specific membrane capacitance. This is the first demonstration of a cDEP device which is capable of operating between 10 and 100 kHz. Positive and negative dielectrophoretic responses were observed in red blood cells, macrophages, breast cancer, and leukemia cells. The area-specific membrane capacitances of MDA-MB231, THP-1 and PC1 cells were determined to be 0.01518 ± 0.0013, 0.01719 ± 0.0020, 0.01275 ± 0.0018 (F/m(2)), respectively. By first establishing the dielectrophoretic responses of cancerous cells within this cDEP device, conditions to detect and enrich tumor cells from mixtures with non-transformed cells can be determined providing further information to develop methods to isolate these rare cells.