TY - JOUR ID - 97269 TI - Label-free impedance-based detection of encapsulated single cells in droplets in low cost and transparent microfluidic chip JO - Journal of Bioengineering Research JA - JBR LA - en SN - 2645-5633 AU - Nikfarjam, Alireza AU - Raji, Hassan AU - Hashemi, Mir Mahdi AD - MEMS&NEMS Laboratory, Faculty of New Sciences & Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran Y1 - 2019 PY - 2019 VL - 1 IS - 4 SP - 29 EP - 37 KW - Droplets Encapsulation KW - Micro Impedance Cytometry KW - Cell Detection KW - Droplet Counting DO - 10.22034/jbr.2019.209410.1015 N2 - This study reports a label-free impedance-based detection of cells inside picoliter droplets. The fabricated fully PMMA micro-chip consists of a double-T junction channel in order to generate same sized droplets for increasing volume fraction and pairs of gold-sputtered differential coplanar electrodes for impedimetric analysis. When same-sized droplets containing cells pass through differential electrodes due to an instant change in electrical impedance, output voltage encounters a significant peak. First we succeeded in generation of same sized droplets. According to our output signal data, an acceptable label free electrical detection of cells inside droplets is obtained. This detection was due to differentiates between empty and non-empty droplets. Moreover we stepped forward in obtaining additional data of cells encapsulated in droplets like number, morphology and size. Furthermore, this electrical approach is in line with development of integrated LOC devices that deals with detection of cells. In this paper, we detected Jurkat cells with an average diameter of 13 µm using less than 80µm droplets by the impedance detection technique in the microfluidic channels. When a droplet passes through the electrodes, the amplitude of output voltage increases. Results showed that droplets with encapsulated Jurkat cell have 1.24% higher output voltage amplitude (320 mV) comparing with empty droplets (260 mV). Our simple fabricated transparent chip has the capability of detection 3 to 4 droplets per second containing living cells through label free characterization according to the size of cells inside droplets. UR - https://www.journalbe.com/article_97269.html L1 - https://www.journalbe.com/article_97269_0b3c340977b3e1bb0713264d38098ccd.pdf ER -