Monitoring Motility, Spreading, and Mortality of Adherent Insect Cells Using an Impedance Sensor

Abstract

An emerging sensor technology referred to as electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) has been extended for monitoring the behavior of insect cells including attachment, motility, and mortality. In ECIS, adherent cells were cultured on an array of eight small gold electrodes deposited on the bottom of tissue culture wells and immersed in a culture medium. Upon the attachment and spreading of cells on the gold electrode, the impedance increased because the cells acted as insulating particles to restrict the current flow. Experimental data revealed that insect cells interacted differently with various proteins used to precoat the gold electrode with concanavalin A as the best promoter to accelerate the rate of cell attachment. After the cells were fully spread, the measured impedance continued to fluctuate to reflect the constant motion and metabolic activity of the cells. As the cell behavior was sensitive to external chemicals, the applicability of ECIS for inhibition assays was demonstrated with HgCl2, trinitrotoluene, trinitrobenzene (TNB), and 2-amino-4,6-dinitrotoluene as model systems. Unlike conventional assays, the quantitative data obtained in this study are taken in real time and in a continuous fashion to depict cell motility and mortality.

Probing inhibitory effects of destruxins from Metarhizium anisopliae using insect cell based impedance spectroscopy: inhibition vs chemical structure

“…Con A has been shown to provoke the best adhesion and spreading behavior for this insect cell line, 26,35 whereas fibronectin, collagen and laminin, are know to promote cell adhesion and spreading for mammalian cells. Con A is also adsorbed more strongly to a gold surface in comparison to fibronectin, a well-known cellular ''glue'' for various mammalian ).…”

Cellular Dielectric Spectroscopy: A Powerful New Approach to Label-Free Cellular Analysis

“…At each frequency, the difference in magnitude of the reflected signal, as compared to the incident wave, is measured. In cell biology, this technology is better known as bioimpedance and has been successfully applied to monitoring cell membrane conductivity, [11][12][13][14][15] monolayer permeability, [16][17][18][19] morphology, [20][21][22] migration, 23,24 and cellular micromotion. 25 Our goal was to extend the use of bioimpedance measurements in an embodiment of this technology to the label-free, noninvasive monitoring of the cellular consequences of ligandreceptor interaction.…”

Noninvasive Cell-Based Impedance Spectroscopy for Real-Time Probing Inhibitory Effects of Graphene Derivatives

“…The ECIS system measures up to 16 sample wells (2 chips of 8 wells, each containing a singly addressable detecting electrode) per experiment. 28 A common counter gold electrode is shared by the 8 detecting electrodes and the two electrodes (detecting gold electrode and counter gold electrode) of the well are connected to a lock-in amplifier. The well impedance was measured every 2 min at 1 VAc and 4 kHz, and the system acquires resistance, impedance and capacitance data.…”