Electric Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing

Electric Cell Impedance Sensing substrates or short ECIS refers to a very broad application of scientific method to the study of living animal cells in vitro, ie outside of a living organism in a controlled laboratory environment.

The method is based on letting the cells grow on a flat gold film electrode (e.g., petri dish ) is situated at the bottom of a culture dish. The AC resistance (impedance) of the cell- covered electrode is measured at one or more frequencies as a function of time. Since the cells behave due to the insulating properties of their plasma membrane as dielectric particles, the impedance with increasing fouling of the electrode increases until a continuous cell layer has formed. In continuous cell layers, the measured impedance of cell- covered electrode is mainly determined by the cell shape. Changing the cell shape due to an external stimulus, such change to the current paths and so that the measured impedance changes according to the cell. Cell shape changes can thus be tracked in time-resolved and sub-microscopic resolution and used for bioanalytical purposes by time-resolved impedance measurement.

Since the three-dimensional shape of animal cells with a high sensitivity to changes in the metabolism, or a chemical, biological or physical influence reacts ECIS the method is used in a variety of applications in cell biology aligned biomedical laboratories. It can be used for drug and Cytotoxizitätsscreening or the adhesion of animal cells to investigate on the ground.