title: A microelectrode-based sensor for label-free in vitro detection of ischemic effects on cardiomyocytes.
abstract: Heart diseases represent the most common cause of death in industrialised countries. For this reason target identification and development of novel anti-target drugs are in the focus of pharmaceutical industry. Especially cardiac infarct is a topical field of research. A bottleneck in today's long-duration and high-cost drug development is the lack of fast, label-free and cell-based high throughput/high content screening (HTS/HCS) assays for bridging the gap between cell-free screening and animal experiments. Here, we report for the first time on an in vitro cardiac ischemic model, where pathological consequences of simulated cardiac infarct can be detected quantitatively by microelectrode array-based impedance spectroscopy. Using the contractile HL-1 cell line and defined ischemic conditions we were able to develop a standardised and reproducible pathologic model. We characterised and verified the HL-1 based ischemic model by apoptosis and proliferation assays as well as immunochemical analysis of cell-cell junctions. We showed that the observed cell and biomolecular effects correspond with results obtained by impedance spectroscopy. Functionality of the impedimetric assay was demonstrated by real-time detection of reduced pathological effects due to application of the selective Rac1 inhibitor NCS23766. Numerical analysis by means of an equivalent circuit allowed the quantification of changes in resistance and capacitance of the adherent cell layer after ischemic treatment and application of NSC23766 as drug model. Our findings provide a novel cell-based real-time screening system for testing drug candidates against cardiac infarct and its implications.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Biotechnology and Biomedicine (BBZ), University of Leipzig, Division of Molecular Biological-Biochemical Processing Technology, Deutscher Platz 5, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Dana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Krinke
authors.forename: Heinz-Georg
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Jahnke
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Pänke
authors.forename: Andrea A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Robitzki
mesh_terms: D017209:Apoptosis; D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D002460:Cell Line; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D004563:Electrochemistry / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007365:Intercellular Junctions / Q000473:pathology; D007511:Ischemia / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008839:Microelectrodes; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000473:pathology*; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D020830:rac1 GTP-Binding Protein / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D020830:rac1 GTP-Binding Protein