Monitoring lung cells

In collaboration with the University of Twente

The Bio Materials Science and Technology group at The University of Twente used the Locsense Artemis to monitor the growth of lung cells, see figure 1, on different types of membranes. The membranes were fabricated in-house and varied in pore size.

Figure 1 Fluorescent microscopy picture of the cultured lung cells.

The measurements provide insight in the preferred pore size for cell culture. In addition, the performance of in-house fabricated membranes was compared to the performance of commercially available membranes in terms of cell culture density.

The measurements took place on a work bench in a cell laboratory. Each well was addressed individually with a custom designed probe, see figure 3. Measurements were performed in the frequency range of 100 Hz to 100kHz.

Figure 3 Probe inserted inside the transwell plate with inserts containing 12 wells.

The resulting impedance spectroscopy measurements are shown in figure 4. From these measurements it can be concluded that the TEER values are lower for lung cells on membranes with a higher porosity.

Figure 4 Impedance of the lung cells on membranes varying in pore size. A higher porosity of the membranes related to a decrease in impedance.