A capacitive biosensor using buried electrodes for the discrimination of whole-cells

Abstract

This paper presents a capacitive biosensor that measures capacitances of living cells in electrolytic solution. The capacitive sensor was designed to consist of buried electrodes and was fabricated in Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Normal breast tissue cell MCF-10A, invasive breast cancer cell MDA-MB-231, and early-stage breast cancer cell MCF-7 were prepared. The capacitances of three cells were measured by LCR meter and calculated the capacitance differences from controlled experiment. Our results show that the capacitance changes of normal and breast cancer cells are different at whole-cell level. Furthermore, the capacitive difference of the cancer cells was observed by stage of cancer. This characterization may have useful developments for applications such as cancer diagnosis and treatment.