Exposure of MDA-MB-231 Cells to Dielectrophoretic Fields for Electroporation and Cancer Diagnostics

This paper presents the experimental analysis of exposing breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231) to dielectrophoretic (DEP) fields on a curved microelectrode platform. The platform was composed of arrays of curved microelectrodes which were patterned onto a glass slide and samples containing MDA-MB-231 cells were pipetted onto the surface of the platform. The MDA-MB-231 cells were suspended in DMEM media to assess the cells behaviour and effects when exposed to DEP fields in different concentrations of DMEM media. Finite element method was utilised to characterise the electric field gradient and DEP field and numerical simulations were used to determine DEP response of the cells. We performed experimental work to observe DEP effects and confirmed the DEP responses obtained from the simulations.