Real-time electrical impedance-based measurement to distinguish oral cancer cells and non-cancer oral epithelial cells

Abstract

In this study, electrical impedance-based measurements were used to distinguish oral cancer cells and non-cancer oral epithelial cells based on their cellular activities on the microelectrodes in a real-time and label-free manner. CAL 27 and Het-1A cell lines were used as the models of oral cancer cells and non-cancer oral epithelial cells, respectively. Various cellular activities, including cell adhesion, spreading, and proliferation were monitored. We found that both the kinetics of cell spreading and the static impedance-based cell index were feasible to distinguish the two cell types. At each given cell number, CAL 27 cell spreading produced a smaller cell index change rate that was 60-70% of those of Het-1A cells. When cells were fully spread, CAL 27 cells generated a cell index more than four times greater than that of Het-1A cells. Since cell spreading and attachment occurs in the first few hours when they were cultured on the microelectrodes, this impedance-based method could be a rapid label-free and non-invasive approach to distinguish oral cancer cells from non-cancer oral epithelial cells. Cell viability analysis was performed along with the impedance-based analysis. Confocal microscopic imaging analysis showed the difference in cell morphology and the thickness of cell monolayers between the two cell types.

Impact of host ageing on the metastatic phenotype

“…Impedance measurements (ECIS) were introduced by Giaever and Keese to characterise interactions of live cells with ionic currents (Giaever and Keese 1984). These effects have since been correlated with a number of cellular parameters, such as cell shape, adhesion, motility, transformation, proliferation, responses to biological agonists and sensitivity to toxic compounds (Wang et al 2008;Hong et al 2011;Yang et al 2011). These correlations, however, are not necessarily universal or obligatory, and reflect mainly physical properties of the respective cell types under specific assay conditions.…”

Characterizing Esophageal Cancerous Cells at Different Stages Using the Dielectrophoretic Impedance Measurement Method in a Microchip

“…Several recently published studies have been carried out to identify the different stages of cancerous cells, or the interactions between cancer cells and normal cells [13,14,15]. Most of them require complex surface marker labeling and have high levels of uncertainty, poor efficiencies, high costs and long durations.…”

“…Most of them require complex surface marker labeling and have high levels of uncertainty, poor efficiencies, high costs and long durations. Among these methods, electrical impedance-based measurement systems have been developed for distinguishing late-stage oral squamous cell carcinomas cell lines from non-cancer oral epithelial cells [14,15]. The cytological stages of cancerous cells can be discriminated by the difference in the kinetics of cell spreading or by the divergence in impedance-based cell index change rate and the cell index between cell types at a given time (at which cells are fully spread) after the cells are cultured on the electrodes.…”

Investigating dielectric properties of different stages of syngeneic murine ovarian cancer cells

“…It has been reported previously that oral squamous cell carcinomas have distinctly different electrical properties than more normal keratinocyte populations, 7 primary normal keratinocytes, pre-cancerous, dysplastic cells, 8 and non-cancer-derived oral epithelial cells. 9 Additionally, transformed and nontransformed rat kidney cells, 10 malignant human breast cancer epithelial cells and benign breast epithelial cells, 11,12 and healthy and infected erythrocytes have all been shown to have different electrical properties. 13 Dielectrophoresis (DEP), the motion of a particle due to its polarization in the presence of a non-uniform electric field, 14 has been used to manipulate particles, including mixing, 15 separation, [16][17][18] enrichment, 19,20 detection, 21 and to investigate their specific electrical properties.…”