Poster

Neuronal and Glial Cell Co-culture Organization and Impedance Spectroscopy on Nanocolumnar TiN Films for Lab-on-a-Chip Devices

Alice Abend, Chelsie Steele, Mareike Zink

Leipzig University, Peter Debye Institute for Soft Matter Physics, Biotechnology and Biomedicine Group, Linnéstraße 5, 04103, Leipzig, Germany

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Lab-on-a-chip devices are miniaturized biomedical laboratories on glass, plastic, or metal chips that promise advances in the study of cell function and behavior without complex tissue structure in vitro. These devices also offer the possibility to study tumor growth and new drugs for cancer treatment ex vivo. We employ multielectrode arrays as an example of lab-on-a-chip devices in combination with a co-culture system of human neuronal cells comprising neuron-like SH-SY5Y and glial-like U-87 MG cells. Using multiple neuron-glial ratios, we show that different brain regions can be modeled to study cell proliferation and cellular organization on electrode materials titanium nitride (TiN) and indium tin oxide (ITO). Results indicate that cell growth depends both on neuron-glial ratio as well as the underlying electrode material substrate. Nanocolumnar TiN exhibits improved biocompatibility features and reduced self-impedance and high signal-to-noise ratios which is beneficial for impedance spectroscopy measurements with multielectrode arrays and miniaturization of electrodes. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy is used to observe cellular processes label free over the time of several days.