Electrophoresis: An Effective Viability Assessment Method across Cell Domains

Cell viability assessments are a critical step in numerous research, clinical and drug development processes. Electrokinetic techniques, such as electrorotation and dielectrophoresis, have shown promise as viability assessment methods, but often under specific and limited conditions. This study explores insulator-based electrokinetic (iEK) systems as a promising analytical alternative, leveraging differences in electromigration to rapidly separate viable and nonviable cells in a microfluidic system. To demonstrate broad efficacy and domain-agnostic discrimination, two prokaryotic bacterial lines (Escherichia coli and Salmonella Typhimurium) and two eukaryotic yeast strains (Saccharomyces cerevisiae ATCC 4098 and ATCC 9080) were studied. This work expands upon previous studies by performing separations in the weak and moderate electric field regimes, thus utilizing the linear and nonlinear regimes of electrophoresis as an adaptive separation mechanism for discriminating viable from nonviable cells. The results confirm that iEK systems can effectively and quantitatively separate viable and nonviable populations across distinct cellular domains (prokaryotic and eukaryotic), achieving high resolution (all Rs > 1.2) and good reproducibility across all conditions tested. This validation establishes iEK electrophoresis as a novel and robust analytical platform for rapid, quantitative cell viability assessment across a variety of disciplines.