Abstract
The electrochemical technique is one of the most accurate, rapid, and sensitive analytical assays, which becomes promising techniques for biological assays at a single-cell scale. Nanometals have been widely used for modification of the traditional electrodes to develop highly sensitive electrochemical cell chips. The electrochemical cell chips based on the nanostructured surface have been used as label-free, simple, and non-destructive techniques for in vitro monitoring of the effects of different anticancer drugs at the cellular level. Here, we will provide the recent progress in fabrication of nanopatterned surface and cell-based nanoarray, and discuss their applications based on electrochemical techniques such as detection of cellular states and chemicals, and non-destructive monitoring of stem cell differentiation.
Introduction
Monitoring the different chemicals' levels plays a vital role in predicting the changes from normal physiology to disease physiology. However, the biological heterogeneity of the living systems showed the unique challenge to monitor the chemical levels. Cell-based sensors have been widely used as attractive assays for previous investigations (Yea et al., ). Electrochemical cell-based chips have been widely studied for (1) investigating the fundamental cellular functions including motility, proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis, (2) evaluation of the effects of different anticancer drugs, (3) drug discovery, and (4) cell-external stimuli interactions (El-Said et al., ). Recently, nanomaterials have attracted the massive attention because of the excellent electrochemical behaviors that could provide the promising immobilization matrices and improve the electrochemical conductivity and, hence, the development of high sensitivity electrochemical cell-based chips could be achieved (Shin et al., ).
In addition, a cell-based nanoarray chip has been studied a lot recently for monitoring stem cell differentiation (Zheng et al., ; Lee et al., ). Particularly, a conductive nanomaterial-based nanoarray chip has a huge potential for non-destructive electrochemical cell monitoring because of its advantages, including the excellent conductivity and improvement of cell alignment (Figure 1A) (Cui et al., ; Ino et al., ; Lee J.-H. et al., ). The non-destructive monitoring is one of the most importantly required characteristics in stem cell therapy for direct use of differentiated cells to the clinical treatment after monitoring in non-destructive manner. For this, several techniques such as electrochemical deposition and laser interference lithography (LIL) have been utilized to develop the novel cell-based nanoarray chip for cell differentiation monitoring (El-Said et al., ).
Figure 1
This mini-review focuses on some of the electrochemical cell chips based on the nanostructured surface and their applications, which provides a broad overview of electrochemical cell chips to be applied for biomedical applications, including the evaluation of drug effect or toxicity and in vitro cell differentiation monitoring.
Nanopatterned Surface to Detect Cellular State and Chemicals Based on Electrochemical Techniques
Metal Nanoparticles-Based Electrochemical and Spectrochemical Sensors
A cell-based chip consisting of arginylglycylaspartic acid-methionylalaninylproline-cysteine (RGD-MAP-C peptide)@gold nanoparticles (Au NPs)/ITO was used to evaluate the proliferation of undifferentiated human neural stem cells (HB1.F3) and the effects of doxorubicin on HB1.F3 cells (Kim et al.,
Furthermore, the Au-Pt NPs were deposited onto Au multi-electrode array and used as a cell-based chip. Pt was introduced to GNPs to improve the electrical properties of the modified electrode. The Au-Pt NPs exhibited moderate neuronal cell affinity comparable to GNPs. We have checked the efficacy of Au-Pt NPs by recording noise levels and spike signals and by observing cultures of primary neuronal cells. The sensor was used to record the neuronal signals from primarily cultured neuron cells (Kim et al.,
Besides, monitoring the critical biomarkers in the human body represented an essential basis for health assessment, pharmaceutical guidance, surgical intervention protocols, and postsurgical monitoring (Khan et al.,
The level of nitric oxide (NO) in physiological environments plays a vital role in several biological processes such as neurotransmission, immune responses, cardiovascular systems, angiogenesis, microcirculation, etc. Changes in the NO levels are associated with inflammation, neurovirulence, and cancer progression. Thus, the development of a real-time NO sensor could be of great importance for human health. However, there are many challenges for NO sensing due to the very low NO concentration in physiological environments and the interference with other chemicals, including glucose, nitrites, and uric acid. Li et al. have fabricated a flexible and biodegradable electrochemical NO sensor (Li et al.,
Moreover, fabrication of porous Au film modified electrodes was reported to enhance the electrochemical conductivity and developing highly sensitive cell-based chip for rapid cancer detection (El-Said et al.,
Increasing the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) leads to most inflammatory diseases' pathogenesis besides its association with aging and chronic inflammation. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) received considerable attention due to the vital role of H2O2 in directing the leukocytes to the injury site (Patella et al.,
Metal Oxides, Metal Hydroxide and Their Composites-Based Electrochemical Sensors
H2O2 monitoring has been successfully done using a wide variety of nanomaterials, including inorganic hydroxides, metal oxides, and metals (Zhang et al.,
On the other hand, an electrochemical biosensor for detecting eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) as an asthma biomarker in the cell culture (Lee C.-Y. et al.,
The level of nitric oxide (NO) in physiological environments plays a vital role in several biological processes such as neurotransmission, immune responses, cardiovascular systems, angiogenesis, microcirculation, etc. Changes in the NO levels are associated with inflammation, neurovirulence, and cancer progression. Thus, the development of a real-time NO sensor could be of great importance for human health. However, there are many challenges for NO sensing due to the very low NO concentration in physiological environments and the interference with other chemicals, including glucose, nitrites, and uric acid. Li et al. have fabricated a flexible and biodegradable electrochemical NO sensor (Li et al.,
Nanoarray to Monitor Stem Cell Differentiation Based on Electrochemical Technique
The in vitro stem cell differentiation is one of the important issues in biomedical fields to be used for stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine (Álvarez-Errico et al.,
Figure 2

(A) Schematic diagram for properties and components of metallic nanoarray-mediated non-destructive monitoring of stem cell differentiation based on electrochemical technique. (B) Schematic diagram of LHONA fabrication on the ITO electrode using the LIL and electrochemical deposition method, and scheme for effective interaction between cells and the surface of nanocup-like structure compared to flat (2D) surface. Reproduced with permission from Kim et al. (
Among various electrochemical methods, the electrochemical deposition method has been particularly used to fabricate the unique structural nanoarrays on the conductive electrode (Li et al.,
To overcome this limitation, several novel techniques have been utilized to develop the electrochemical monitorable nanoarray composed of state-of-the-art nanostructures. For example, the combinatorial graphene-based hybrid arrays with different geometries were developed by using the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) stamping method (Kim et al.,
Among various novel techniques, the facile LIL technique provides the powerful strategy to develop the multifunctional electrochemical cell-based nanoarray chip in relatively simple fabrication manner. As a mask-less lithographic technique, the LIL is more convenient than the other lithography techniques to fabricate millions of nanostructures using the photosensitive materials like the photoresist molecules (Lu and Lipson,
In addition to this study, the graphene-gold hybrid nanoelectrode arrays (NEAs) were developed for not only non-destructive monitoring, but also for enhancing the stem cell differentiation (Figure 2C) (Lee J.-H. et al.,
Conclusion and Future Perspective
The electrochemical cell-based chips are in-vitro microfabricated devices mimicking the cell functions, widely used as promising, rapid, precise, and non-destructive tools. The electrochemical cell-based chips were widely used for drug screening, studying the cellular functions, studying cell-to-cell interaction, and detection of small biomolecules, including DNA, enzymes, and hormones. Particularly, the nanopatterned surfaces for detecting cellular state and chemicals, cell-based nanoarray chips have been studied hugely for non-destructive electrochemical cell differentiation monitoring, which is essentially required for stem cell therapy, using several novel techniques such as LIL and electrochemical deposition. Developed cell-based nanoarray chips showed excellent biocompatibility and highly sensitive monitoring property for stem cell differentiation. Still, further studies are required to solve several issues and to develop the effective nanoarrays for specific cell differentiation control by interdisciplinary approaches for commercial application. Nevertheless, researches discussed in this mini-review provides interdisciplinary knowledge and new approaches to develop the electrochemical cell chips for numerous biomedical applications such as evaluation of drug effect/toxicity and in vitro cell differentiation monitoring. Furthermore, cell-based chips would contribute in several fields such as (i) accurate medical diagnosis, (ii) disease diagnosis, (iii) quality assurance of stem cell-based products, (iv) generate more human-like biology, and (v) more human-relevant, including personalized medicine (i.e., precision medicine).
Statements
Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2019R1A2C3002300) and by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Education (No. 2016R1A6A1A03012845). JY acknowledges support from New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research (SNJ-CCR-DCHS20PPC043).
Conflict of interest
S-NL was employed by Uniance Gene Inc. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Summary
Keywords
cell-based chip, nanometal, electrochemical detection, biosensor, nanoarray
Citation
El-Said WA, Yoon J, Lee S-N and Choi J-W (2021) Electrochemical Cell Chips Based on Functionalized Nanometals. Front. Chem. 9:671922. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2021.671922
Received
24 February 2021
Accepted
12 April 2021
Published
06 May 2021
Volume
9 - 2021
Edited by
Jibin Song, Fuzhou University, China
Reviewed by
Lei Wang, Harbin Institute of Technology, China; Thirumurugan Arun, Universidad de Atacama, Chile
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© 2021 El-Said, Yoon, Lee and Choi.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Jeong-Woo Choi jwchoi@sogang.ac.krSang-Nam Lee snlee9191@hanmail.net
This article was submitted to Nanoscience, a section of the journal Frontiers in Chemistry
†These authors have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship
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