Analysis of MDA-MB-231 cancer cell Dielectrophoretic response

Abstract

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a phenomenon where a neutral particle can be either attracted to (pDEP) or repelled away from (nDEP) specific regions with highest electric field gradient. In previous work, we demonstrated the simulation and experimental work with yeast cell suspended in deionized water, where the result showed that yeast cells experience linear and rotational motion under DEP. In this work, we extend our work into the study of cancer cells, specifically MDA-MB-231 cell. While no DEP response is predicted at higher DMEM concentration, for MDA-MB-231 cells suspended in diluted DMEM (1%), the simulation shows that within frequency range of 1 kHz to 10 GHz, the cross-over frequency located at 80 kHz and 120 MHz, with cell demonstrates pDEP at frequency range between those two, while nDEP is at both frequency ranges less than 80 kHz and higher than 120 MHz. The following experimental work justify the simulation result, with the cell exhibits nDEP at 50 kHz, while pDEP is observed at 100, 200 and 500 kHz, among those selected frequencies. Due to substantial difference between the cell mass, the response time is hugely different with cancer cell shown significant reduction, however, the quantification is expected at future work.