A Portable Impedance Microflow Cytometer for Measuring Cellular Response
to Hypoxia
Abstract
This paper presents the development and testing of a low-cost
(< $60), portable, electrical impedance based microflow
cytometer for single cell analysis under controlled oxygen
microenvironment. The system is based on an AD5933 impedance analyzer
chip, a microfluidic chip, and an Arduino microcontroller operated by a
custom Android application. A representative case study on human red
blood cells (RBCs) affected by sickle cell disease is conducted to
demonstrate the capability of the cytometry system. An equivalent
circuit model of a suspended biological cell is used to interpret the
electrical impedance of single flowing RBCs. RBCs exhibit decreased mean
membrane capacitance by 24% upon hypoxia treatment while the mean
cytoplasmic resistance remains consistent. RBCs affected by sickle cell
disease exhibit decreased cytoplasmic resistance and increased membrane
capacitance upon hypoxia treatment. Strong correlations are identified
between the changes in the cells’ subcellular electrical components and
the hypoxia-induced cell sickling process. The results reported in this
paper suggest that the developed method of testing demonstrates the
potential application for low-cost screening technique for sickle cell
disease and other diseases in the field and low-resource settings. The
developed system and methodology can be extended to analyze cellular
response to hypoxia in other cell types.