New Frontiers and Challenges for Single-Cell Electrochemical Analysis

Abstract

Previous measurements of cell populations might obscure many important cellular differences, and new strategies for single-cell analyses are urgently needed to re-examine these fundamental biological principles for better diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Electrochemistry is a robust technique for the analysis of single living cells that has the advantages of minor interruption of cellular activity and provides the capability of high spatiotemporal resolution. The achievements of the past 30 years have revealed significant information about the exocytotic events of single cells to elucidate the mechanisms of cellular activity. Currently, the rapid developments of micro/nanofabrication and optoelectronic technologies drive the development of multifunctional electrodes and novel electrochemical approaches with higher resolution for single cells. In this Perspective, three new frontiers in this field, namely, electrochemical microscopy, intracellular analysis, and single-cell analysis in a biological system (i.e., neocortex and retina), are reviewed. The unique features and remaining challenges of these techniques are discussed.

Confined Nanopipette Sensing: From Single Molecules, Single Nanoparticles, to Single Cells

“…Nanopipettes have a hollow needle‐like geometry, with lengths of a few centimeters and sharp tips with diameters of a few nanometers. As a consequence of this specific geometry, nanopipettes can be easily used in combination with a micromanipulation system for single‐cell analysis . A study has demonstrated that the cell retains its normal behavior and maintains a healthy cell cycle after being punched for 1 minute at 1 V by a 100 nm nanopipette .…”

Nanoscale Electrochemical Mapping

“…16 The popularity of SECM, in particular, and SEPM in general, for single cell electrochemical imaging and life sciences applications, is reflected in a number of recent review articles. [17][18][19][20][21][22] SEPM is a key enabling technology for the emerging fields of single entity electrochemistry and electrochemistry at nano-interfaces, for which there were seminal Faraday Discussion meetings in 2016 and 2018, respectively. The published volumes of these meetings 23, 24 contain not only original papers, but also extensive discussions of key issues.…”

Bioanalytical chemistry with scanning electrochemical microscopy

“…Traditional cellular biology research analyzes a culture of cells at once and defines the characteristics of a single cell as the average value thereof 60 . The size of each cell is small (ca.…”