Organic electrochemical transistor array for monitoring barrier integrity of epithelial cells invaded by nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract

Cancer metastasis, characterized by the migration of tumour cells to secondary, distant places, indicates a late stage of tumour progression and accounts for most cancer deaths. Barrier tissues, like epithelial cells, act as the frontline against circulating tumour cells and their disruption is often regarded as the hallmark of malignancy. Therefore, assessing barrier function is often involved in cancer-related studies and drug screening assays. Limitations of the current existing strategies have, however, led to a need for an accurate, intuitive option that carries the capability of simultaneous bioimaging. Taking advantages of the good biocompatibility and high transconductance, we made use of organic electrochemical transistor (OECT), an emerging bioelectronic platform, to study the effects of intruding cancer cells on normal epithelium monolayer. We performed multichannel recording of 16-channel OECT array to investigate the behaviour of a newly reported nasopharyngeal cancer cell line NPC43 on epithelial cells. Experimental results show that the platform can distinguish NPC43 from other epithelial or cancer cell types and retrieve spatial information during NPC43 invasion. The developed platform is thus envisioned to be a potential non-optical tool for monitoring cancer invasion.