RESEARCH ARTICLE


Electrical Stimulation of NIH-3T3 Cells with Platinum-PEDOT-Electrodes Integrated in a Bioreactor



Grit Blume1, Wiebke Müller-Wichards2, Christiane Goepfert1, Ralf Pörtner1, Jörg Müller*, 2
1 Institute of Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Germany
2 Institute of Micro System Technology, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Germany


Article Metrics

CrossRef Citations:
5
Total Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 668
Abstract HTML Views: 466
PDF Downloads: 275
Total Views/Downloads: 1409
Unique Statistics:

Full-Text HTML Views: 413
Abstract HTML Views: 297
PDF Downloads: 221
Total Views/Downloads: 931



Creative Commons License
© Blume et al.; Licensee Bentham Open.

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Institute for Micro System Technology, Eissendorferstr. 42, D-21073 Hamburg, Germony; Tel: +49 40 428 78 30 29; Fax: +49 40 428 78 23 96; E-mail: j.mueller@tuhh.de


Abstract

The objective of this work involves the development and integration of electrodes for the electrical stimulation of cells within a bioreactor. Electrodes need to fit properties such as biocompatibility, large reversible charge transfer and high flexibility in view of their future application as implants on the tympanic membrane. Flexible thin-film platinum-poly(3,4-ethylene-dioxythiophene)-electrodes on a poly(ethylene terephthalate)-foil manufactured using microsystems technology were integrated into a bioreactor based on the design of a 24 well plate. The murine fibroblast cell line NIH-3T3 was cultured on the foil electrodes and the cells were stimulated with direct voltage and unipolar pulsed voltage. The amplitude, the pulse length and the ratio of pulse to pause were varied. The stimulated cells were stained in order to determine the angle between the cell cleavage plane of the dividing cells and the vector of the electric field. These angles were subsequently used to calculate the polarization index, which is a measure of the orientation of the metaphase plane of dividing cells that occurs for example during wound healing or embryonic morphogenesis.

Keywords: : Electrical stimulation, orientation of metaphase plate, cell culture, fibroblasts, integrated biocompatible electrodes, polarization index..