Label-Free Sensing of Cell Viability Using a Low-Cost Impedance Cytometry Device

Cell viability is an essential physiological status for drug screening. While cell staining is a conventional cell viability analysis method, dye staining is usually cytotoxic. Alternatively, impedance cytometry provides a straightforward and label-free sensing approach for the assessment of cell viability. A key element of impedance cytometry is its sensing electrodes. Most state-of-the-art electrodes are made of expensive metals, microfabricated by lithography, with a typical size of ten microns. In this work, we proposed a low-cost microfluidic impedance cytometry device with 100-micron wide indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes to achieve a comparable performance to the 10-micron wide Au electrodes. The effectiveness was experimentally verified as 7 mu m beads can be distinguished from 10 mu m beads. To the best of our knowledge, this is the lowest geometry ratio of the target to the sensing unit in the impedance cytometry technology. Furthermore, a cell viability test was performed on MCF-7 cells. The proposed double differential impedance cytometry device has successfully differentiated the living and dead MCF-7 cells with a throughput of similar to 1000 cells/s. The label-free and low-cost, high-throughput impedance cytometry could benefit drug screening, fundamental biological research and other biomedical applications.

Automated summary

Cell viability is essential for drug screening. This study proposed a low-cost microfluidic impedance cytometry device with 100-micron wide indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes to assess cell viability without the cytotoxicity of dye staining.