A Review of Advanced Impedance Biosensors with Microfluidic Chips for Single-Cell Analysis

Abstract

Electrical impedance biosensors combined with microfluidic devices can be used to analyze fundamental biological processes for high-throughput analysis at the single-cell scale. These specialized analytical tools can determine the effectiveness and toxicity of drugs with high sensitivity and demonstrate biological functions on a single-cell scale. Because the various parameters of the cells can be measured depending on methods of single-cell trapping, technological development ultimately determine the efficiency and performance of the sensors. Identifying the latest trends in single-cell trapping technologies afford opportunities such as new structural design and combination with other technologies. This will lead to more advanced applications towards improving measurement sensitivity to the desired target. In this review, we examined the basic principles of impedance sensors and their applications in various biological fields. In the next step, we introduced the latest trend of microfluidic chip technology for trapping single cells and summarized the important findings on the characteristics of single cells in impedance biosensor systems that successfully trapped single cells. This is expected to be used as a leading technology in cell biology, pathology, and pharmacological fields, promoting the further understanding of complex functions and mechanisms within individual cells with numerous data sampling and accurate analysis capabilities.

A Novel Prototype Biosensor Array Electrode System for Detecting the Bacterial Pathogen Salmonella typhimurium

“…were used, as compared with the response when the same number of Salmonella cells was used, implies that the sensor surface with immobilized mouse anti- Salmonella monoclonal antibody (MCA) is specific for binding of Salmonella cells and will not permit non-selective binding of nonspecific bacterial cells that do not possess epitopes complementary to the immobilized antibody ( Figure 12 ). The results clearly show that a specific response signal is generated in the presence of more than 30 Salmonella cells, which represents an improvement in sensitivity over existing sensors currently on the market [ 4 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ]. Statistical one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was computed for pairs of data.…”

The Origins and the Current Applications of Microfluidics-Based Magnetic Cell Separation Technologies

“…The application of magnetic separation outside of WBC versus RBC field was demonstrated for label-free negative enrichment of breast cancer cells circulating in the blood stream. In this study, Han et al [52] applied their paramagnetic separator with Nickel wire as an enrichment stage which was then coupled with a micro-scale electrical impedance spectroscopy (µ-EIS) [53] for detection. Using the paramagnetic properties of deoxygenated RBCs, WBCs and the breast cancer cells spiked in blood were separated from the RBCs, and their subsequent µ-EIS measurements not only distinguished the malignant cells from the healthy population, but also detected different pathological stages of the cancer cells [52].…”

A Review on Microfluidics-Based Impedance Biosensors

“…Biosensors are mainly used to measure or perceive signals from biological responses. Electrical biosensors can be generally classified into potential, current, and impedance sensors [1]. H. E. Ayliffe pioneered the measurement of single-cell impedance in a microchannel in 1999 [2].…”