Development of a rapid, sensitive and cost-effective method for toxicity assessment of commonly used nanoparticles is urgently needed for the sustainable development of nanotechnology. A neural cell with high sensitivity and conductivity has become a potential candidate for a cell chip to investigate toxicity of environmental influences. A neural cell immobilized on a conductive surface has become a potential tool for the assessment of nanotoxicity based on electrochemical methods. The effective electrochemical monitoring largely depends on the adequate attachment of a neural cell on the chip surfaces. Recently, establishment of integrin receptor specific ligand molecules arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) or its several modifications RGD-Multi Armed Peptide terminated with cysteine (RGD-MAP-C), C(RGD)₄ ensure farm attachment of neural cell on the electrode surfaces either in their two dimensional (dot) or three dimensional (rod or pillar) like nano-scale arrangement. A three dimensional RGD modified electrode surface has been proven to be more suitable for cell adhesion, proliferation, differentiation as well as electrochemical measurement. This review discusses fabrication as well as electrochemical measurements of neural cell chip with particular emphasis on their use for nanotoxicity assessments sequentially since inception to date. Successful monitoring of quantum dot (QD), graphene oxide (GO) and cosmetic compound toxicity using the newly developed neural cell chip were discussed here as a case study. This review recommended that a neural cell chip established on a nanostructured ligand modified conductive surface can be a potential tool for the toxicity assessments of newly developed nanomaterials prior to their use on biology or biomedical technologies.
Keywords: RGD nanostructure; electrochemical method; nanotoxicity; neural cell chip.