Real-Time Monitoring In Vitro Cellular Cytotoxicity of Silica Nanotubes Using Electric Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing (ECIS)

Abstract

An electrical measurement known as Electric Cell-substrate Impedance Sensing (ECIS) has become increasingly applied to the study of cellular viability, proliferation and cytotoxicity with the advantages of label-free, non-invasion and real-time monitoring capability in comparison with other conventional methods (MTS, MTT). With this technique, cells are grown on the micro-sized gold electrodes where the micro-ampere alternative current is applied to measure the impedance changes due to the physiological changes caused by internal or external stimuli. In another field, Silica Nanotubes (SNTs) are a novel class of inorganic structures with promising potentials in bio-separation, drug delivery, imaging and other biomedical applications. In this study, by using ECIS-based self-fabricated cell chip, Cells were cultured on the working electrodes and separately exposure to the 0, 2 mu m, 2 mu m and 10 mu m long at the varying concentrations of SNTs to evaluate the cellular responses such as viability, multiplication time and cytotoxicity. Final results were additionally compared with the MTS method as a reference to review the reliability