Cell-based screening for membranal and cytoplasmatic markers using dielectric spectroscopy

Amit Ron*, Ragini Raj Singh, Nick Fishelson, Irena Shur, Rina Socher, Dafna Benayahu, Yosi Shacham-Diamand

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

Dielectric spectroscopy (DS) of living biological cells is based on the analysis of the complex dielectric permittivity of cells suspended in a physiological medium. It provides knowledge on the polarization-relaxation response of cells to external electric field as function of the excitation frequency. This response is strongly affected by both structural and molecular properties of cells and therefore, can reveal rare insights on cell physiology and behaviour. This study demonstrates the mapping potential of DS after cytoplasmatic and membranal markers for cell-based screening analysis. The effect of membrane permittivity and cytoplasm conductivity was examined using tagged MBA and MDCK cell lines respectively. Comparing the permittivity spectra of tagged and native cell lines reveals clear differences between the analyzed suspensions. In addition, differences on the matching dielectric properties of cells were obtained. Those findings support the high distinction resolution and sensitivity of DS after fine molecular and cellular changes, and hence, highlight the high potential of DS as non invasive screening tool in cell biology research.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)59-68
Number of pages10
JournalBiophysical Chemistry
Volume135
Issue number1-3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2008

Keywords

  • Cell screening
  • Dielectric spectroscopy
  • Interfacial polarization
  • Lectin
  • SEC13

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