Non-Faradaic Electrical Impedimetric Investigation of the Interfacial Effects of Neuronal Cell Growth and Differentiation on Silicon Nanowire Transistors

Abstract

Silicon nanowire field-effect transistor (SiNW FET) devices have been interfaced with cells; however, their application for noninvasive, real-time monitoring of interfacial effects during cell growth and differentiation on SiNW has not been fully explored. Here, we cultured rat adrenal pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells, a type of neural progenitor cell, directly on SiNW FET devices to monitor cell adhesion during growth and morphological changes during neuronal differentiation for a period of 5-7 d. Monitoring was performed by measuring the non-Faradaic electrical impedance of the cell-SiNW FET system using a precision LCR meter. Our SiNW FET devices exhibited changes in impedance parameters during cell growth and differentiation because of the negatively charged cell membrane, seal resistance, and membrane capacitance at the cell/SiNW interface. It was observed that during both PC12 cell growth and neuronal differentiation, the impedance magnitude increased and the phase shifted to more negative values. However, impedance changes during cell growth already plateaued 3 d after seeding, while impedance changes continued until the last observation day during differentiation. Our results also indicate that the frequency shift to above 40 kHz after growth factor induction resulted from a larger coverage of cell membrane on the SiNWs due to distinctive morphological changes according to vinculin staining. Encapsulation of PC12 cells in a hydrogel scaffold resulted in a lack of trend in impedance parameters and confirmed that impedance changes were due to the cells. Moreover, cytolysis of the differentiated PC12 cells led to significant changes in impedance parameters. Equivalent electrical circuits were used to analyze the changes in impedance values during cell growth and differentiation. The technique employed in this study can provide a platform for performing investigations of growth-factor-induced progenitor cell differentiation.

Hybrid Silicon Nanowire Devices and Their Functional Diversity

“…The real-time measurements show signal change when hypoxia is generated, and a comparison for different oxygen concentrations, including absence of signal change when Ca 2+ channels are blocked with cadmium ions. [5] Copyright 2015, ACS Publications, https://pubs.acs.org/ doi/10.1021/acsami.5b01878, further permissions related to this figure should be directed to ACS. [171] Copyright 2013, ACS Publications.…”

“…Biotin binding on a streptavidin layer above the Debye length in 100 × 10 −3 m ionic strength buffer could be sensed. Impedance technique was also used for cell analysis by Lin et al [5] (Figure 11c). As pointed out by Ingebrandt, [184] the use of this technique with nanoscale sensors might be of a significant impact for biosensing (Figure 11b).…”

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scalability evolution like no other element of the circuits: from the first demonstrated macroscale point-contact germanium transistor in 1948 at Bell Laboratories [1] to the billions of nanoscale ones fabricated in a single chip used for digital electronics. [2][3][4][5] Such an operation mode of semiconductor-based nanodevices can be used, in particular, for the investigation of biochemical processes, bio-or photodetection, or bioinspired functionality with ultrahigh sensitivity. [2][3][4][5] Such an operation mode of semiconductor-based nanodevices can be used, in particular, for the investigation of biochemical processes, bio-or photodetection, or bioinspired functionality with ultrahigh sensitivity.

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Faradaic and non-faradaic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy as transduction techniques for sensing applications

“…Thus, the impedance of a non-faradaic sensor arises from the effect caused by the insulating characteristics of the target analyte bond to the conductive substrate. 13 Typically, the most valuable impedance parameter in this case is the double layer capacitance and it is only limited by the nature of the charge carriers and their concentration in the boundary layer of the transducer substrate. 3 Nonetheless, the |Z| and φ components are adequate transducer parameters.…”

Nano-Biosensor for Monitoring the Neural Differentiation of Stem Cells

“…Lin et al reported on an electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) system with field effect transistor (SiNW FET) to detect the differentiation of PC12 cells on silicon nanowire electrodes in real-time [ 40 ]. They monitored cell morphology and growth during neuronal differentiation for 5 to 7 days using a SiNW-coated FET device through E4980A precision LCR meter (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA).…”