Highlighting the uniqueness in dielectrophoretic enrichment of circulating tumor cells

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) play an essential role in the metastasis of tumors, and thus can serve as a valuable prognostic factor for malignant diseases. As a result, the ability to isolate and characterize CTCs is essential. This review underlines the potential of dielectrophoresis for CTCs enrichment. It begins by summarizing the key performance parameters and challenges of CTCs isolation using microfluidics. The two main categories of CTCs enrichment—affinity‐based and label‐free methods—are analysed, emphasising the advantages and disadvantages of each as well as their clinical potential. While the main argument in favour of affinity‐based methods is the strong specificity of CTCs isolation, the major advantage of the label‐free technologies is in preserving the integrity of the cellular membrane, an essential requirement for downstream characterization. Moving forward, we try to answer the main question: “What makes dielectrophoresis a method of choice in CTCs isolation?” The uniqueness of dielectrophoretic CTCs enrichment resides in coupling the specificity of the isolation process with the conservation of the membrane surface. The specificity of the dielectrophoretic method stems from the differences in the dielectric properties between CTCs and other cells in the blood: the capacitances of the malignantly transformed cellular membranes of CTCs differ from those of other cells. Examples of dielectrophoretic devices are described and their performance evaluated. Critical requirements for using dielectrophoresis to isolate CTCs are highlighted. Finally, we consider that DEP has the potential of becoming a cytometric method for large‐scale sorting and characterization of cells.     

Novel amperometric sensors for nitrite detection using electrodes modified with PEDOT prepared in ionic liquids

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - Novel amperometric sensors based on poly-3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT) were prepared and characterized for nitrite detection. An experimental matrix...     

Content of Carotenoids,Violaxanthin and Neoxanthin in Leaves of Triticum aestivum Exposed to Persistent Environmental Pollutants

Persistent pollutants such as pharmaceuticals, pesticides, musk fragrances, and dyes are frequently detected in different environmental compartments and negatively impact the environment and humans. Understanding the impacts of diffuse environmental pollutants on plants is still limited, especially at realistic environmental concentrations of contaminants. We studied the effects of key representatives of two major classes of environmental pollutants (nine different antibiotics and six different textile dyes) on the leaf carotenoid (violaxanthin and neoxanthin) content in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) using different pollutant concentrations and application times. The wheat plants were watered with solutions of selected environmental pollutants in two different concentrations of 0.5 mg L⁻¹ and 1.5 mg L⁻¹ for one week (0.5 L) and two weeks (1 L). Both categories of pollutants selected for this study negatively influenced the content of violaxanthin and neoxanthin, whereas the textile dyes represented more severe stress to the wheat plants. The results demonstrate that chronic exposure to common diffusively spread environmental contaminants constitutes significant stress to the plants.     

Neutron correlations in 6He viewed through nuclear break-up

The nuclear break-up of ⁶He on a ²⁰⁸Pb target was studied at 20A MeV using a secondary beam of ⁶He produced by the SPIRAL facility at GANIL. $ \alpha$ -particles were detected in coincidence with two neutrons with a large angular coverage and the reaction mechanism was identified. From the distribution of the relative angles between the two neutrons the correlation function was extracted. It shows a strong correlation at small relative angles attributed to the contribution of the di-neutron configuration of ⁶He .     

‘Explicit’ and ‘implicit’ non-local continuous descriptions for a plate with circular inclusion in tension

Meccanica - Increasing application of composite structures in engineering field inherently speed up the studies focusing on the investigation of non-homogeneous bodies. Due to their capability on...     

Pentametallic lanthanide-alkoxide square-based pyramids: high energy barrier for thermal relaxation in a holmium single molecule magnet

Pentametallic Ln complexes of formula [Ln(5)O(O(i)Pr)(13)] have been made, where Ln(III) = Sm, Gd, Tb, Ho and Er; slow magnetisation relaxation to 33 K is observed for the Ho complex with an energy barrier of ca. 400 K.