Impedimetric Characterization of Bipolar Nanoelectrodes with Cancer Cells

Abstract

Merging of electronics with biology, defined as bioelectronics, at the nanoscale holds considerable promise for sensing and modulating cellular behavior. Advancing our understanding of nanobioelectronics will facilitate development and enable applications in biosensing, tissue engineering, and bioelectronic medicine. However, studies investigating the electrical effects when merging wireless conductive nanoelectrodes with biology are lacking. Consequently, a tool is required to develop a greater understanding of merging conductive nanoparticles with cells. Herein, this challenge is addressed by developing an impedimetric method to evaluate bipolar electrode (BPE) systems that could report on electrical input. A theoretical framework is provided, using impedance to determine if conductive nanoparticles can be polarized and used to drive current. It is then demonstrated that 125 nm of gold nanoparticle (AuNP) bipolar electrodes (BPEs) could be sensed in the presence of cells when incorporated intracellularly at 500 μg/mL using water and phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) as electrolytes. These results highlight how nanoscale BPEs act within biological systems. This research will impact the rational design of using BPE systems in cells for both sensing and actuating applications.

Electric field responsive nanotransducers for glioblastoma

“…Together with our previous observations and the obtained data we tentatively suggest that the inorganic NPs irrespective of their dielectric properties, could acts as EF transducers (Robinson et al, 2021 ). The observed enhancement with conductive GNPs and semiconducting ZnO NPs, can be further explained by the ability of these conducting and semiconducting NPs to polarize and align themselves with the applied EF to act as bipolar nanoelectrodes or transducers (Guo et al, 2021 ; Cao et al, 2018 ; Li & Anand, 2017 ).…”

Nanoimpedimetry with plasmonic nanoparticles

“…Quantitative imaging of electrical current will provide new capabilities for performing electrophysiological measurements optically at the microscopic scale 15 . 34 Furthermore, this method will offer a new generation of impedance spectroscopy given the flexibility of using nanoparticles as intracellular impedance sensors 35 among a wide range of electrochemical applications. 36 The combined modelling and experimental protocols that are presented here can also be used to study and test metallic and dielectric materials for applications beyond biology such as energy storage.…”

Electric Field Responsive Nanotransducers for Glioblastoma

“…Together with our previous observations and the obtained data we tentatively suggest that the inorganic NPs irrespective of their dielectric properties, could acts as EF transducers. 44 The observed enhancement with conductive GNPs and semiconducting ZnO NPs, can be further explained by the ability of these conducting and semiconducting NPs to polarize and align themselves with the applied EF to act as bipolar nanoelectrodes or transducers. [44][45][46] Furthermore, the observed enhanced electric effects could also be due to the bipolar electrophoretic effect, as both the GNPs and ZnO are negatively charged.…”

“…44 The observed enhancement with conductive GNPs and semiconducting ZnO NPs, can be further explained by the ability of these conducting and semiconducting NPs to polarize and align themselves with the applied EF to act as bipolar nanoelectrodes or transducers. [44][45][46] Furthermore, the observed enhanced electric effects could also be due to the bipolar electrophoretic effect, as both the GNPs and ZnO are negatively charged. Moreover, the applied TTFields are known to induce biophysical forces on charged entities which may have .…”