Mathematical Modeling of Dielectrophoresis Single-Cell Capture in a Microfluidic Device

Microfluidic devices have been a popular method for running high-throughput single-cell analysis assays. The goal of these assays is to study behaviors of heterogeneous tumor cells, such as growth, symmetric/asymmetric division, and treatment resistance, in single-cell resolution. The current single-cell capture scheme in microfluidic devices is via a hydrodynamic capture mechanism. Although the single-cell throughput has increased, there is an obstacle where a free-flow capture scheme increases the possibility of the number of capture sites housing multiple cells. In order to eliminate this possibility dielectrophoretic force (DEP) can be applied to assure the capture of single-cells. However, since DEP has various parameters such as the geometry of the device, the dielectric constant of the medium, and the cell physiology, it would be time as well as cost-effective to mathematically model the design of the microfluidic device before fabricating it. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to mathematically model DEP, single-cell capture in order to design an effective microfluidic platform.