Quantitative evaluation of micromotion of cultured cells using electrical cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) method - cell-to-cell distance and cell-to-substrate distance -

We have proposed a mathematical model for the micro-dynamics for cultured cells measured with ECIS system for the detection of nanometer-order dynamics of cells cultured on a small gold electrode and could separately evaluate cell-to-cell distance (A) and cell-to-substrate distance (h). For wide applications of this method, we constructed mathematical models which express cell-to-electrode impedances for some kinds of confluent conditions. Based on this mathematical model, we defined new parameters S(A) and S(h) in order to evaluate cell-to-cell distance and cell-to-substrate distance. As the application, we investigated the effect of X-irradiation to bovine aortic endothelial cell (BAEC). We analyzed the micro-dynamics of cells from the impedance of BAEC before and after X-irradiation. It was proved that the stimulation of 100 Gy X-irradiation to the BAEC resulted in the large scale of increase in the cell-to-cell distances (A), and the slight increase in the cell-to-substrate distances (h) accompany with continuous fluctuations.