Numerical simulation of dielectrophoretic behavior of neuroblastoma cells

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is the motion of particles caused by polarization effects in a nonuniform electric field. It has been widely used as a label-free technique for dielectric characterization of biological cells. This work presents a numerical simulation of neuroblastoma cell DEP using the finite element method. COMSOL Multiphysics software is used to analyze the electrical field generated by microelectrodes in a microfluidic chamber. DEP forces exerted on cells are calculated using a simplified spherical shell model and Maxwell’s stress tensor. The latter provides electrostatic force distribution on cell membranes that mimics the actual physics of a cell surrounded by an electrically conductive medium. The model is validated by comparing the simulation results of cell trajectories with the experimentally observed DEP response of neuroblastoma cells cultured from SH-SY5Y cell line in a microfluidic chamber. To induce DEP, ITO electrodes (10 wide and 50 inter-electrode spacing) deposited on the glass substrate of the chamber are energized by a sinusoidal waveform ofpeak-to-peak in a frequency range of 100 kHz-122 MHz. Additionally, a parametric study is performed to investigate the effects of voltage level, frequency, and cell size on the DEP response of cells.