Detection of Hepatocellular carcinoma in clinical specimens using Dielectrophoresis based ElectroKinetic Platform

[Display omitted] •A travelling wave electro-kinetic platform-based DEP phenomenon is presented and discussed.•The proposed microelectrode is implemented using Printed Circuit Board (PCB) technology.•TT T TThis study presents a comparison between HCCs, normal liver cells, and Rat’s normal muscle cells.•The experimental work asserts the ability of the proposed electro-kinetic platform to manipulate the biological cells.•All results prove the ability of the proposed electro-kinetic platform to distinguish between HCCs and normal liver cells. Liver malignant growth incorporates hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) involving 75 %–85 % of liver patients respectively which is attributed mainly to the lack of early biomarker/s and poor accesses to affordable, simple diagnostic techniques, which is not available in the conventional techniques of HCC diagnosis. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop an alternative simple, rapid HCC diagnostic system. One side of this development is the use of a lab on a chip, which facilitates the detection of cancer cells quickly and efficiently at a lower cost. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) phenomenon is the motion of neutral particles under the effect of the non-uniform electric field. DEP phenomenon is a widely used technique for manipulation and separation of biological cells. The proposed electro-kinetic platform is designed based on travelling wave dielectrophoresis (twDEP) configuration, which is implemented using a printed circuit board (PCB) technology. Herein, we have developed an electro-kinetic platform based on PCB technology to characterize, identify, and detect human liver cancer cells from clinical samples, compared to human normal liver cells. Also, rat’s normal muscle cells as a different organism has been tested. The experimental results proved the ability of the developed electro-kinetic platform to differentiate efficiently between HCC and normal liver cells from real clinical samples, and Rat’s normal muscle cells, with high specificity, accuracy and sensitivity.