Bioimpedance analysis of L929 and HaCaT cells in low frequency range

Abstract

In this work, Bioimpedance Spectroscopy (BIS) is used to study fuids and cell solutions. A new four-electrode-terminal (4T) chamber using 3D printing and stainless steel corrosion resistant V4A was designed to measure the impedance of live cell solutions at the frequency range 0.1Hz-1MHz. At f < 1kHz the double layer (DL) that builds at electrode's surface raises the impedance substantially preventing the observation of the real impedance of the cells. The new 4T design circumvents the DL, is more robust and cheap, and allows for the repeatability of the results. Experiments were performed in vitro with two cell lines, L929 (mouse fbroblasts) and HaCaT (human keratinocytes). Results show that it is possible to distinguish between the two cell types by means of its BIS measurements in the new setup. Also, a low-frequency dispersion (α-dispersion) was observed in HaCaT cells solution, but not in L929. Furthermore, a potentiostat circuit model was developed in LTSpice to simulate the hardware setup and two different circuit models were used to ft cell's data.