A DEP-based lab-on-a-chip system for the detection of multidrug resistance in K562 leukemia cells

This study presents a DEP-based lab-on-a-chip (LOC) system for label-free detection of multidrug resistant (MDR) K562 leukemia cells in a cell mixture, consisting of red blood cells (RBCs) and MDR-K562 cells, for the first time in the literature.The system consists of 2 consecutive DEP units, one for the depletion of RBCs and the other for capturing of MDR-K562 cells.RBCs are depleted by 60% in the first unit.In the second unit, MDR-K562 cell detection is performed with 100% selectivity at a flow rate of 10 μl/min and at 20 V pp in a cell mixture, containing less than 25% MDR-K562 cells.