A biomedical microdevice for quantal exocytosis measurement with microelectrodes arrays

Abstract

A microdevice was developed for cell trapping and exocytosis monitoring. The microdevice was assembled by two-layer poly(dimethyl siloxane) slab and microelectrodes integrated glass slide. The top layer with a depth of 20 um was manufactured for cell flowing and the bottom layer with a depth of 2.5 um was manufactured for cell trapping. Chromaffin cells can be trapped on top of indium tin oxide electrodes with this microdevice, and amperometric signals originated from catecholamine oxidation were obtained by flowing high K+ stimulating solution. The time course and areas of spikes recorded show that the manufactured device can provide sufficient sensitivity for quantal exocytosis measurement, and this biomedical device can be used for measuring cell exocytosis as traditional carbon fiber microelectrodes. By coupling with the multichannel amplifier, high throughput analysis of cell exocytosis can be achieved with this microdevice, which is obviously superior to the carbon fiber microelectrodes based method. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.