A cell electro-rotation micro-device using polarized cells as electrodes

Cell rotation is widely required in various fields as an important technique for single cell manipulation. Usually, the electro-rotational manipulation of single cells by dielectrophoresis technologies requires at least three electrodes to generate rotating electric fields which induce cells to rotate. Here, we present a novel microfluidic chip capable of rotating single cell using only two planar electrodes by taking polarized cells as the extra electrodes with phase-shifted signal. To demonstrate this idea, we configured two parallel and planar electrodes as basic dielectrophoresis elements and placed trenches above these electrodes to attract cells, which were in turn polarized to be electrodes. Through simulation, we confirmed the functional structure of the device works well to generate proper rotating electric fields for cell rotation. Through experiment, we successfully demonstrated controlled electro-rotation of HeLa and HepaRG cells. The novel electro-rotation mechanism not only simplifies the micro-device structure but also reduces the complexity of single cell rotation operation which will be a benefit to the potential users.