Detection of cardiovascular drugs and marine toxins using a multifunctional cell-based impedance biosensor system

With growing concern about human health, relevant drug and food toxicity has drawn more and more attention. However, traditional methods like mouse bioassays cannot meet the sharply increasing demand for drug and food toxicity assessment. In this study, a multifunctional cell-based impedance biosensor system is established for drug and toxin analysis, using a cell-based impedance biosensor (CIB) as the sensitive element. Cellular growth and beating experiments were carried out to verify the multifunctionality of the system. Four typical heart-related compounds including verapamil, bay K8644, chromanol 293B, and adriamycin were used for cardiotoxicity analysis function tests of the CIB system. Also, one typical marine diarrhetic toxin, okadaic acid (OA), was used for cytotoxicity analysis function tests of the CIB system. From the results, the CIB system can reflect the drug function and toxicity directly through the cell growth and beating status. According to the results, the multifunctional CIB system may provide a high-throughput and useful method for effective screening of cardiovascular drugs and marine toxins in vitro.