Non-invasive long-term and real-time analysis of endocrine cells on micro-electrode arrays

J Physiol. 2012 Mar 1;590(5):1085-91. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.220038. Epub 2011 Dec 23.

Abstract

Non-invasive high-throughput and long-term monitoring of endocrine cells is important for drug research, phenotyping, tissue engineering and pre-transplantation quality control. Here we report a novel approach to obtain simultaneous long-term electrical recordings of different islet cell types using multi-electrode arrays. We implemented wavelet transforms to resolve the low signal/noise ratio inherent to these measurements and extracted on-line a signature specific of cell activity. The architecture employed allows multiplexing a large number of electrodes for high-throughput screening. This method should be of considerable advantage in endocrine research and may be extended to other excitable cells previously not accessible to the technique.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cells, Cultured
  • Islets of Langerhans / physiology*
  • Mice
  • Microelectrodes
  • Patch-Clamp Techniques