Nanostructured Microelectrodes to Study Breast Cancer Cell Adhesion

VICTORIA GUGLIELMOTTI; DIEGO PALLAROLA

San Sebastián

Workshop; International Workshop on Self-Assembly and Hierarchical Materials and Biomedicine; 2018

There is a great demand for non-invasive tools, of quick response, and high precision for the diagnosis of diseases. The methods used for the diagnosis of malignant cancers have shown limitations such as low sensitivity/specificity, long test times, invasive procedures, and expensive equipment. In this context, the immense potential of biosensors in terms of simplicity of operation, greater sensitivity, capacity for inclusion in integrated systems and low cost, makes them a very attractive option for their implementation in the field of medical diagnosis.Devices based on the measurement of electrochemical impedance have shown great potential for the study of cell adhesion events. Among its advantage, it stands out it is possible to monitor changes in the impedance in a label-free, instantaneous and non-destructive manner. However, most of the sensors developed in this field are limited to the use of surfaces with a non-homogeneous distribution of ligands on a molecular scale. The main disadvantage of these approaches is that the cellular response can only be investigated based on the average surface concentration of the adhesive ligands. This makes them unsuitable to measure on the scale of length at which cell adhesion events occur.Our approach is based on the use of nanostructured indium-tin oxide (ITO) microelectrodes with gold nanoparticles. The geometrically controlled positioning of the nanoparticles allows locating the adhesive ligands with nanometric resolution. The electrodes were constructed by combining contact lithography by light in the UV range and lithography of block copolymer micelles. Results corresponding to its physicochemical design and characterization are presented. The integration of the microelectrodes with a custom made flow cell allows the monitoring of cell adhesion processes by means of electrochemical and optical microscopy techniques simultaneously.