Recovery and Analysis of Bacterial Membrane Vesicle Nanoparticles from Human Plasma Using Dielectrophoresis.

Bacterial membrane vesicle (BMV) nanoparticles are secreted naturally by bacteria throughout their lifecycle and are a rich source of biomarkers from the parent bacteria, but they are currently underutilized for clinical diagnostic applications, such as pathogen identification, due to the time-consuming and low-yield nature of traditional recovery methods required for analysis. The recovery of BMVs is particularly difficult from complex biological fluids. Here, we demonstrate a recovery method that uses dielectrophoretic (DEP) forces generated on electrokinetic microfluidic chips to isolate and analyze BMVs from human plasma.

Collection of serum albumin aggregate nanoparticles from human plasma by dielectrophoresis.

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a fast and reliable nanoparticle recovery method that utilizes nonuniform electric fields to manipulate particles based on their material composition and size, enabling recovery of biologically-derived nanoparticles from plasma for diagnostic applications. When applying DEP to undiluted human plasma, collection of endogenous albumin proteins was observed at electric field gradients much lower than predicted by theory to collect molecular proteins. To understand this collection, nanoparticle tracking analysis of bovine serum albumin (BSA) dissolved in 0.

On-chip dielectrophoretic recovery and detection of a lactate sensing probiotic from model human saliva.

Early detection has led to increased survival for multiple cancers; however, the 5-year survival rate of oral carcinoma (OC) has remained at 40% for the last several decades. Screening for OC is routinely done via visual examinations, followed by tissue biopsy and laboratory testing. Point-of-care testing would be a more convenient and widely available alternative for at-risk individuals.