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Rane A, Jarmoshti J, Siddique AB, Adair S, Torres-Castro K, Honrado C, Bauer TW, Swami NS. Dielectrophoretic enrichment of live chemo-resistant circulating-like pancreatic cancer cells from media of drug-treated adherent cultures of solid tumors. Lab Chip 2024; 24:561-571. [PMID: 38174422 PMCID: PMC10826460 DOI: 10.1039/d3lc00804e] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2023] [Accepted: 12/19/2023] [Indexed: 01/05/2024]
Abstract
Due to low numbers of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in liquid biopsies, there is much interest in enrichment of alternative circulating-like mesenchymal cancer cell subpopulations from in vitro tumor cultures for utilization within molecular profiling and drug screening. Viable cancer cells that are released into the media of drug-treated adherent cancer cell cultures exhibit anoikis resistance or anchorage-independent survival away from their extracellular matrix with nutrient sources and waste sinks, which serves as a pre-requisite for metastasis. The enrichment of these cell subpopulations from tumor cultures can potentially serve as an in vitro source of circulating-like cancer cells with greater potential for scale-up in comparison with CTCs. However, these live circulating-like cancer cell subpopulations exhibit size overlaps with necrotic and apoptotic cells in the culture media, which makes it challenging to selectively enrich them, while maintaining them in their suspended state. We present optimization of a flowthrough high frequency (1 MHz) positive dielectrophoresis (pDEP) device with sequential 3D field non-uniformities that enables enrichment of the live chemo-resistant circulating cancer cell subpopulation from an in vitro culture of metastatic patient-derived pancreatic tumor cells. Central to this strategy is the utilization of single-cell impedance cytometry with gates set by supervised machine learning, to optimize the frequency for pDEP, so that live circulating cells are selected based on multiple biophysical metrics, including membrane physiology, cytoplasmic conductivity and cell size, which is not possible using deterministic lateral displacement that is solely based on cell size. Using typical drug-treated samples with low levels of live circulating cells (<3%), we present pDEP enrichment of the target subpopulation to ∼44% levels within 20 minutes, while rejecting >90% of dead cells. This strategy of utilizing single-cell impedance cytometry to guide the optimization of dielectrophoresis has implications for other complex biological samples.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aditya Rane
- Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
| | - Javad Jarmoshti
- Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
| | | | - Sara Adair
- Surgery, School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
| | | | - Carlos Honrado
- International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, Braga, Portugal
| | - Todd W Bauer
- Surgery, School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
| | - Nathan S Swami
- Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
- Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
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Torres-Castro K, Acuña-Umaña K, Lesser-Rojas L, Reyes DR. Microfluidic Blood Separation: Key Technologies and Critical Figures of Merit. Micromachines (Basel) 2023; 14:2117. [PMID: 38004974 PMCID: PMC10672873 DOI: 10.3390/mi14112117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2023] [Revised: 11/01/2023] [Accepted: 11/10/2023] [Indexed: 11/26/2023]
Abstract
Blood is a complex sample comprised mostly of plasma, red blood cells (RBCs), and other cells whose concentrations correlate to physiological or pathological health conditions. There are also many blood-circulating biomarkers, such as circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and various pathogens, that can be used as measurands to diagnose certain diseases. Microfluidic devices are attractive analytical tools for separating blood components in point-of-care (POC) applications. These platforms have the potential advantage of, among other features, being compact and portable. These features can eventually be exploited in clinics and rapid tests performed in households and low-income scenarios. Microfluidic systems have the added benefit of only needing small volumes of blood drawn from patients (from nanoliters to milliliters) while integrating (within the devices) the steps required before detecting analytes. Hence, these systems will reduce the associated costs of purifying blood components of interest (e.g., specific groups of cells or blood biomarkers) for studying and quantifying collected blood fractions. The microfluidic blood separation field has grown since the 2000s, and important advances have been reported in the last few years. Nonetheless, real POC microfluidic blood separation platforms are still elusive. A widespread consensus on what key figures of merit should be reported to assess the quality and yield of these platforms has not been achieved. Knowing what parameters should be reported for microfluidic blood separations will help achieve that consensus and establish a clear road map to promote further commercialization of these devices and attain real POC applications. This review provides an overview of the separation techniques currently used to separate blood components for higher throughput separations (number of cells or particles per minute). We present a summary of the critical parameters that should be considered when designing such devices and the figures of merit that should be explicitly reported when presenting a device's separation capabilities. Ultimately, reporting the relevant figures of merit will benefit this growing community and help pave the road toward commercialization of these microfluidic systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karina Torres-Castro
- Biophysical and Biomedical Measurements Group, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA;
- Theiss Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Katherine Acuña-Umaña
- Medical Devices Master’s Program, Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica (ITCR), Cartago 30101, Costa Rica
| | - Leonardo Lesser-Rojas
- Research Center in Atomic, Nuclear and Molecular Sciences (CICANUM), San José 11501, Costa Rica;
- School of Physics, Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR), San José 11501, Costa Rica
| | - Darwin R. Reyes
- Biophysical and Biomedical Measurements Group, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA;
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Torres-Castro K, Jarmoshti J, Xiao L, Rane A, Salahi A, Jin L, Li X, Caselli F, Honrado C, Swami NS. Multichannel impedance cytometry downstream of cell separation by deterministic lateral displacement to quantify macrophage enrichment in heterogeneous samples. Adv Mater Technol 2023; 8:2201463. [PMID: 37706194 PMCID: PMC10497222 DOI: 10.1002/admt.202201463] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/05/2022] [Indexed: 09/15/2023]
Abstract
The integration of on-chip biophysical cytometry downstream of microfluidic enrichment for inline monitoring of phenotypic and separation metrics at single-cell sensitivity can allow for active control of separation and its application to versatile sample sets. We present integration of impedance cytometry downstream of cell separation by deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) for enrichment of activated macrophages from a heterogeneous sample, without the problems of biased sample loss and sample dilution caused by off-chip analysis. This required designs to match cell/particle flow rates from DLD separation into the confined single-cell impedance cytometry stage, the balancing of flow resistances across the separation array width to maintain unidirectionality, and the utilization of co-flowing beads as calibrated internal standards for inline assessment of DLD separation and for impedance data normalization. Using a heterogeneous sample with un-activated and activated macrophages, wherein macrophage polarization during activation causes cell size enlargement, on-chip impedance cytometry is used to validate DLD enrichment of the activated subpopulation at the displaced outlet, based on the multiparametric characteristics of cell size distribution and impedance phase metrics. This hybrid platform can monitor separation of specific subpopulations from cellular samples with wide size distributions, for active operational control and enhanced sample versatility.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karina Torres-Castro
- Electrical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Javad Jarmoshti
- Electrical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Li Xiao
- Orthopedics, School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Aditya Rane
- Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Armita Salahi
- Electrical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Li Jin
- Orthopedics, School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Xudong Li
- Orthopedics, School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Virginia-22904, USA
| | | | - Carlos Honrado
- Electrical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Nathan S. Swami
- Electrical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
- Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
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Torres-Castro K, Azimi MS, Varhue WB, Honrado C, Peirce SM, Swami NS. Biophysical quantification of reorganization dynamics of human pancreatic islets during co-culture with adipose-derived stem cells. Analyst 2022; 147:2731-2738. [DOI: 10.1039/d2an00222a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Reorganization dynamics of human islets during co-culture with adipose stem cells depends on islet size and the heterogeneity can be assessed based on biomechanical opacity of individual islets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karina Torres-Castro
- Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Mohammad S. Azimi
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Walter B. Varhue
- Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Carlos Honrado
- Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Shayn M. Peirce
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
| | - Nathan S. Swami
- Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia-22904, USA
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Huang X, Torres-Castro K, Varhue W, Salahi A, Rasin A, Honrado C, Brown A, Guler J, Swami NS. Self-aligned sequential lateral field non-uniformities over channel depth for high throughput dielectrophoretic cell deflection. Lab Chip 2021; 21:835-843. [PMID: 33532812 PMCID: PMC8019514 DOI: 10.1039/d0lc01211d] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/21/2023]
Abstract
Dielectrophoresis (DEP) enables the separation of cells based on subtle subcellular phenotypic differences by controlling the frequency of the applied field. However, current electrode-based geometries extend over a limited depth of the sample channel, thereby reducing the throughput of the manipulated sample (sub-μL min-1 flow rates and <105 cells per mL). We present a flow through device with self-aligned sequential field non-uniformities extending laterally across the sample channel width (100 μm) that are created by metal patterned over the entire depth (50 μm) of the sample channel sidewall using a single lithography step. This enables single-cell streamlines to undergo progressive DEP deflection with minimal dependence on the cell starting position, its orientation versus the field and intercellular interactions. Phenotype-specific cell separation is validated (>μL min-1 flow and >106 cells per mL) using heterogeneous samples of healthy and glutaraldehyde-fixed red blood cells, with single-cell impedance cytometry showing that the DEP collected fractions are intact and exhibit electrical opacity differences consistent with their capacitance-based DEP crossover frequency. This geometry can address the vision of an "all electric" selective cell isolation and cytometry system for quantifying phenotypic heterogeneity of cellular systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- XuHai Huang
- Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
| | - Karina Torres-Castro
- Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
| | - Walter Varhue
- Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
| | - Armita Salahi
- Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
| | - Ahmed Rasin
- Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
| | - Carlos Honrado
- Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA.
| | - Audrey Brown
- Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
| | | | - Nathan S Swami
- Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA. and Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
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Torres-Castro K, Honrado C, Varhue WB, Farmehini V, Swami NS. High-throughput dynamical analysis of dielectrophoretic frequency dispersion of single cells based on deflected flow streamlines. Anal Bioanal Chem 2020; 412:3847-3857. [PMID: 32128645 DOI: 10.1007/s00216-020-02467-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2019] [Revised: 01/21/2020] [Accepted: 01/28/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Phenotypic quantification of cells based on their plasma membrane capacitance and cytoplasmic conductivity, as determined by their dielectrophoretic frequency dispersion, is often used as a marker for their biological function. However, due to the prevalence of phenotypic heterogeneity in many biological systems of interest, there is a need for methods capable of determining the dielectrophoretic dispersion of single cells at high throughput and without the need for sample dilution. We present a microfluidic device methodology wherein localized constrictions in the microchannel are used to enhance the field delivered by adjoining planar electrodes, so that the dielectrophoresis level and direction on flow-focused cells can be determined on each traversing cell in a high-throughput manner based on their deflected flow streamlines. Using a sample of human red blood cells diluted to 2.25 × 108 cells/mL, the dielectrophoretic translation of single cells traversing at a flow rate of 1.68 μL/min is measured at a throughput of 1.1 × 105 cells/min, to distinguish positive versus negative dielectrophoresis and determine their crossover frequency in media of differing conductivity for validation of the computed membrane capacitance to that from prior methods. We envision application of this dynamic dielectrophoresis (Dy-DEP) method towards high-throughput measurement of the dielectric dispersion of single cells to stratify phenotypic heterogeneity of a particular sample based on their DEP crossover frequency, without the need for significant sample dilution. Grapical abstract.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karina Torres-Castro
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA
| | - Carlos Honrado
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA
| | - Walter B Varhue
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA
| | - Vahid Farmehini
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA
| | - Nathan S Swami
- Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA.
- Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA.
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