Microwave biosensor for the detection of growth inhibition of human liver cancer cells at different concentrations of chemotherapeutic drug

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2024 May 13:12:1398189. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2024.1398189. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Cytotoxicity assays are crucial for assessing the efficacy of drugs in killing cancer cells and determining their potential therapeutic value. Measurement of the effect of drug concentration, which is an influence factor on cytotoxicity, is of great importance. This paper proposes a cytotoxicity assay using microwave sensors in an end-point approach based on the detection of the number of live cells for the first time. In contrast to optical methods like fluorescent labeling, this research uses a resonator-type microwave biosensor to evaluate the effects of drug concentrations on cytotoxicity by monitoring electrical parameter changes due to varying cell densities. Initially, the feasibility of treating cells with ultrapure water for cell counting by a microwave biosensor is confirmed. Subsequently, inhibition curves generated by both the CCK-8 method and the new microwave biosensor for various drug concentrations were compared and found to be congruent. This agreement supports the potential of microwave-based methods to quantify cell growth inhibition by drug concentrations.

Keywords: cytotoxicity assay; drug concentrations; growth inhibition; live cells; microwave sensors.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61801146), Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2021M691284), Postgraduate Research and Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. SJCX23_1226), and Open Project of the Key Laboratory of Nanodevices and Applications, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 22ZS07).