Monitoring Contractile Cardiomyocytes via Impedance Using Multipurpose Thin Film Ruthenium Oxide Electrodes.

Rolf H Slaats,Wouter Olthuis,Douwe S De Bruijn,Albert Van Den Berg,Esther Tanumihardja

doi:10.3390/s21041433

Abstract

A ruthenium oxide (RuOx) electrode was used to monitor contractile events of human pluripotent stem cells-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) through electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Using RuOx electrodes presents an advantage over standard thin film Pt electrodes because the RuOx electrodes can also be used as electrochemical sensor for pH, O2, and nitric oxide, providing multisensory functionality with the same electrode. First, the EIS signal was validated in an optically transparent well-plate setup using Pt wire electrodes. This way, visual data could be recorded simultaneously. Frequency analyses of both EIS and the visual data revealed almost identical frequency components. This suggests both the EIS and visual data captured the similar events of the beating of (an area of) hPSC-CMs. Similar EIS measurement was then performed using the RuOx electrode, which yielded comparable signal and periodicity. This mode of operation adds to the versatility of the RuOx electrode’s use in in vitro studies.

Highlights

In vitro cell cultures are a growing class of models at the center of biomedical research
This work presents another mode of operation, using the thin film ruthenium oxide (RuOx) electrode to observe the contractile activities of a human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes monolayer through electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), demonstrating the versatility of the presented RuOx electrode
The temperature was theira analyses confirmed that EISof measurement at 100 kHz Given could capture the contractile not controlled during the measurement, a slight temperature can explain the events of the hPSC-CMs, both from the magnitude as well as difference the phase data

Summary

Introduction

In vitro cell cultures are a growing class of models at the center of biomedical research. The electrode has been reported as a potentiometric pH electrode [7,8], an amperometric oxygen electrode [9], an amperometric nitric oxide electrode [10,11], as well as an electrophyiosology electrode [12] This work presents another mode of operation, using the thin film RuOx electrode to observe the contractile activities of a human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs) monolayer through electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), demonstrating the versatility of the presented RuOx electrode. The performance of in vitro cardiomyocytes cultures cannot be described using (all of) the typical parameters used for their in vivo counterparts (e.g., certain volumes, pressures, etc.), due to the different dimensionality and absence of confounding factors (e.g., neurohormonal activity) [13]. The simplicity of the parameter and the many possibilities for its readout make it an attractive parameter to add to many in vitro studies

Methods

Results

Conclusion