Monitoring Red Blood Cell Aggregation Dynamics in Stasis and Under Flow Using a Microfluidic Dielectric Sensor

This paper reports on monitoring the red blood cell (RBC) aggregation dynamics under flow and in static condition using a microfluidic dielectric sensor. The sensor employs a three-dimensional (3D), parallel-plate, capacitive sensing structure with a floating electrode integrated into a microfluidic channel with a height of 50μm. Using an impedance analyzer, the sensor is shown to measure the real part of complex relative dielectric permittivity of human whole blood in a frequency range of 10kHz-100MHz under flow and in static condition. The dielectric permittivity of human whole blood at 1MHz indicates the formation of RBC aggregate structures called rouleaux under static condition and their complete breakdown under a physiological shear flow rate of 500s−1• This work also demonstrates that the kinetics of RBC aggregation is dependent on fibrinogen concentration of the blood sample and establishes that the sensor is capable of distinguishing this difference in the aggregation process even under physiological shear flow rates. This work demonstrates the potential of dielectric spectroscopy in obtaining information on RBC aggregation dynamics using µL-volumes of whole blood under flow and in stasis.