5. CONCLUSIONS
In this study, we developed a microfluidic device containing 2D, gold
microelectrode arrays and performed DEP experiments to determine
dielectric properties of U87 glioma cell line. We simulated the
distribution of electric field and displayed the pDEP regions in the
microchannel. We observed that glioma cells exhibited the response of
crossover frequency between 100 kHz – 150 kHz, 3 Vpp, where cells did
not experience either nDEP or pDEP forces. We performed heterogeneity
analysis of the cells applying frequencies from 200 kHz to 10 MHz. We
showed that 50% of the glioma cells were influenced by pDEP forces,
when we increased the frequency 500 kHz, the dielectric distribution of
the cells was very uniform compared to 300 kHz. We showed that 45% of
the glioma cells responded either weakly or moderately to DEP forces
independently associated to the applied frequency. Therefore, our
further study will focus on separation of these U87 glioma
subpopulations and their downstream analysis. Our goal is to reveal
whether dielectrophoretic response of glioma cells can be used as a
maker to determine organization of the cells in the spatial distribution
of the invasive migration. When we define measurable, precise, and
reproducible characterization parameters of glioma cells, we might
contribute to combat with aggressiveness and invasiveness of glioma
cancers.