by Keyword: Dielectrophoresis
Páez-Avilés, C., Juanola-Feliu, E., Punter-Villagrasa, J., Del Moral Zamora, B., Homs-Corbera, A., Colomer-Farrarons, J., Miribel-Català , P. L., Samitier, J., (2016). Combined dielectrophoresis and impedance systems for bacteria analysis in microfluidic on-chip platforms Sensors 16, (9), 1514 
Bacteria concentration and detection is time-consuming in regular microbiology procedures aimed to facilitate the detection and analysis of these cells at very low concentrations. Traditional methods are effective but often require several days to complete. This scenario results in low bioanalytical and diagnostic methodologies with associated increased costs and complexity. In recent years, the exploitation of the intrinsic electrical properties of cells has emerged as an appealing alternative approach for concentrating and detecting bacteria. The combination of dielectrophoresis (DEP) and impedance analysis (IA) in microfluidic on-chip platforms could be key to develop rapid, accurate, portable, simple-to-use and cost-effective microfluidic devices with a promising impact in medicine, public health, agricultural, food control and environmental areas. The present document reviews recent DEP and IA combined approaches and the latest relevant improvements focusing on bacteria concentration and detection, including selectivity, sensitivity, detection time, and conductivity variation enhancements. Furthermore, this review analyses future trends and challenges which need to be addressed in order to successfully commercialize these platforms resulting in an adequate social return of public-funded investments.
JTD Keywords: Bacteria, Dielectrophoresis, Impedance, Microfluidics, On-chip
del Moral-Zamora, Beatriz, Punter-Villagrassa, Jaime, Oliva-Brañas, Ana M., Álvarez-Azpeitia, Juan Manuel, Colomer-Farrarons, Jordi, Samitier, Josep, Homs-Corbera, Antoni, Miribel-Català, Pere Ll, (2015). Combined dielectrophoretic and impedance system for on-chip controlled bacteria concentration: application to Escherichia coli 
Electrophoresis , 36, (9-10), 1130-1141
The present paper reports a bacteria autonomous controlled concentrator prototype with a user-friendly interface for bench-top applications. It is based on a micro-fluidic lab-on-a-chip and its associated custom instrumentation, which consists in a dielectrophoretic actuator, to pre-concentrate the sample, and an impedance analyser, to measure concentrated bacteria levels. The system is composed by a single micro-fluidic chamber with interdigitated electrodes and a instrumentation with custom electronics. The prototype is supported by a real-time platform connected to a remote computer, which automatically controls the system and displays impedance data used to monitor the status of bacteria accumulation on-chip. The system automates the whole concentrating operation. Performance has been studied for controlled volumes of Escherichia coli (E. coli) samples injected into the micro-fluidic chip at constant flow rate of 10 μL/min. A media conductivity correcting protocol has been developed, as the preliminary results showed distortion of the impedance analyser measurement produced by bacterial media conductivity variations through time. With the correcting protocol, the measured impedance values were related to the quantity of bacteria concentrated with a correlation of 0.988 and a coefficient of variation of 3.1%. Feasibility of E. coli on-chip automated concentration, using the miniaturized system, has been demonstrated. Furthermore, the impedance monitoring protocol had been adjusted and optimized, to handle changes in the electrical properties of the bacteria media over time.
JTD Keywords: Autonomous Device, Bacteria Concentrator, Dielectrophoresis, Escherichia coli, Impedance Analysis
Jaramillo, Maria del Carmen, Huttener, Mario, Alvarez, Juan Manuel, Homs-Corbera, Antoni, Samitier, Josep, Torrents, Eduard, Juárez, Antonio, (2015). Dielectrophoresis chips improve PCR detection of the food-spoiling yeast Zygosaccharomyces rouxii in apple juice Electrophoresis , 36, (13), 1471-1478
DEP manipulation of cells present in real samples is challenging. We show in this work that an interdigitated DEP chip can be used to trap and wash a population of the food-spoiling yeast Zygosaccharomyces rouxii that contaminates a sample of apple juice. By previously calibrating the chip, the yeast population loaded is efficiently trapped, washed and recovered in a small-volume fraction which, in turn, can be used for efficient PCR detection of this yeast. DEP washing of yeast cells gets rid of PCR inhibitors present in apple juice and facilitates PCR analysis. This and previous works on the use of DEP chips to improve PCR analysis show that a potential use of DEP is to be used as a treatment of real samples prior to PCR.
JTD Keywords: Dielectrophoresis, PCR, Saccharomyces, Yeast
del Moral Zamora, Beatriz, Manuel Álvarez Azpeitia, Juan, Brañas, Ana Ma Oliva, Colomer-Farrarons, Jordi, Castellarnau, Marc, Miribel-Català, Pere Ll, Homs-Corbera, Antoni, Juárez, Antonio, Samitier, Josep, (2015). Dielectrophoretic concentrator enhancement based on dielectric poles for continuously flowing samples Electrophoresis , 36, (13), 1405-1413
We describe a novel continuous-flow cell concentrator micro-device based on dielectrophoresis (DEP), and its associated custom-made control unit. The performances of a classical interdigitated metal electrode-based DEP microfluidic device and this enhanced version, that includes insulator-based pole structures, were compared using the same setup. Escherichia coli (E. coli) samples were concentrated at several continuous flows and the device's trapping efficiencies were evaluated by exhaustive cell counts. Our results show that pole structures enhance the retention up to 12.6%, obtaining significant differences for flow rates up to 20 μl/min, when compared to an equivalent classical interdigitated electrodes setup. In addition, we performed a subsequent proteomic analysis to evaluate the viability of the biological samples after the long exposure to the actuating electrical field. No E. coli protein alteration in any of the two systems was observed.
JTD Keywords: Concentrator, Dielectrophoresis, Escherichia coli, Lab- on- a- chip
del Moral Zamora, B., Azpeitia, J. M. Á, Farrarons, J. C., Català, P. L. M., Corbera, A. H., Juárez, A., Samitier, J., (2014). Towards point-of-use dielectrophoretic methods: A new portable multiphase generator for bacteria concentration Micro and Nanosystems , 6, (2), 71-78
This manuscript presents a portable and low cost electronic system for specific point-of-use dielectrophoresis applications. The system is composed of two main modules: a) a multiphase generator based on a Class E amplifier, which provides 4 sinusoidal signals (0°, 90°, 180°, 270°) at 1 MHz with variable output voltage up to 10 Vpp (Vm) and an output driving current of 1 A; and b) a dielectrophoresis-based microfluidic chip containing two interdigitated electrodes. The system has been validated by concentrating Escherichia coli (E. coli) at 1 MHz while applying a continuous flow of 5 µL/min. The device functionalities were verified under different conditions, achieving an 83% trapping efficiency when counter-phased signals are used.
JTD Keywords: Cell Concentrator, Class E amplifier, Dielectrophoresis, Electronics, Lab-on-a-chip (LOC), Low cost, Portable device
del Moral Zamora, B., Azpeitia, J. M. Á, Farrarons, J. C., Català, P. L. M., Corbera, A. H., Juárez, A., Samitier, J., (2014). Towards point-of-use dielectrophoretic methods: A new portable multiphase generator for bacteria concentration IFMBE Proceedings XIII Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing 2013 (ed. Roa Romero, Laura M.), Springer International Publishing (London, UK) 41, 856-859
This manuscript presents portable and low cost electronic system for specific point-of-use dielectrophoresis applications. The system is composed of two main modules: a) a multiphase generator based on a Class E amplifier, which provides 4 sinusoidal signals (0º, 90º, 180º, 270º) at 1 MHz with variable output voltage up to 10 Vpp (Vm) and an output driving current of 1 A; and b) a dielectrophoresis-based microfluidic chip containing two interdigitated electrodes. The system has been validated by concentrating Escherichia Coli at 1 MHz while applying a continuous flow of 5 μL/min. Device functionalities were verified under different conditions achieving a 83% trapping efficiency in the best case.
JTD Keywords: Cell Concentrator, Class E amplifier, Dielectrophoresis, Electronics, Lab-on-a-chip (LOC), Low cost, Portable device
Jaramillo, M. D., Torrents, E., Martinez-Duarte, R., Madou, M. J., Juarez, A., (2010). On-line separation of bacterial cells by carbon-electrode dielectrophoresis Electrophoresis , 31, (17), 2921-2928
Dielectrophoresis (DEP) represents a powerful approach to manipulate and study living cells. Hitherto, several approaches have used 2-D DEP chips. With the aim to increase sample volume, in this study we used a 3-D carbon-electrode DEP chip to trap and release bacterial cells. A continuous flow was used to plug an Escherichia coli cell suspension first, to retain cells by positive DEP, and thereafter to recover them by washing with peptone water washing solution. This approach allows one not only to analyze DEP behavior of living cells within the chip, but also to further recover fractions containing DEP-trapped cells. Bacterial concentration and flow rate appeared as critical parameters influencing the separation capacity of the chip. Evidence is presented demonstrating that the setup developed in this study can be used to separate different types of bacterial cells.
JTD Keywords: Bacteria, Carbon electrode, Dielectrophoresis, E. coli, Separation
