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SU-8 microchannels for live cell dielectrophoresis improvements

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Abstract

In this work a novel highly precise SU-8 fabrication technology is employed to construct microfluidic devices for sensitive dielectrophoretic (DEP) manipulation of budding yeast cells. A benchmark microfluidic live cell sorting system is presented, and the effect of microchannel misalignment above electrode topologies on live cell DEP is discussed in detail. Simplified model of budding Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast cell is presented and validated experimentally in fabricated microfluidic devices. A novel fabrication process enabling rapid prototyping of microfluidic devices with well-aligned integrated electrodes is presented and the process flow is described. Identical devices were produced with standard soft-lithography processes. In comparison to standard PDMS based soft-lithography, an SU-8 layer was used to construct the microchannel walls sealed by a flat sheet of PDMS to obtain the microfluidic channels. Direct bonding of PDMS to SU-8 surface was achieved by efficient wet chemical silanization combined with oxygen plasma treatment of the contact surface. The presented fabrication process significantly improved the alignment of the microstructures. While, according to the benchmark study, the standard PDMS procedure fell well outside the range required for reasonable cell sorting efficiency. In addition, PDMS delamination above electrode topologies was significantly decreased over standard soft-lithography devices. The fabrication time and costs of the proposed methodology were found to be roughly the same.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), project “NTIS-New Technologies for the Information Society”, European Centre of Excellence, CZ.1.05/1.1.00/02.0090 and the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic within the SGS Project No. SGS-2013-041.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Electronics and Telecommunications, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of West Bohemia, Univerzitni 8, Pilsen, 30614, Czech Republic

    Pavel Fikar & Vjaceslav Georgiev

  2. New Technologies for the Information Society European Centre of Excellence, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Univerzitni 8, Pilsen, 30614, Czech Republic

    Pavel Fikar & Daniel Georgiev

  3. Universite Paris Est, ESYCOM EA2552, ESIEE Cite Descartes, BP99, Noisy Le Grand, 93162, France

    Pavel Fikar, Gaelle Lissorgues & Lionel Rousseau

  4. Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan, CNRS, SATIE, UMR 8029, Cachan, France

    Olivier Francais, Bruno Le Pioufle & Feriel S. Hamdi

  5. Department of Cybernetics, University of West Bohemia, Univerzitni 8, Pilsen, 30614, Czech Republic

    Daniel Georgiev

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  1. Pavel Fikar
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  2. Gaelle Lissorgues
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  3. Lionel Rousseau
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  4. Olivier Francais
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  5. Bruno Le Pioufle
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  6. Feriel S. Hamdi
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  7. Vjaceslav Georgiev
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  8. Daniel Georgiev
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Correspondence to Pavel Fikar.

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Fikar, P., Lissorgues, G., Rousseau, L. et al. SU-8 microchannels for live cell dielectrophoresis improvements. Microsyst Technol 23, 3901–3908 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-015-2725-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-015-2725-y

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