Microwave dielectric spectroscopy as an analytic technique of electroporated cells
Abstract
Microwave dielectric spectroscopy is under development for decades. It consists in
characterizing whether solid, liquid or gaseous materials with their dielectric properties in this specific
frequency range. The technique is intrinsically non-destructive, rapid and without requiring a direct
contact with the sample under test, which made it particularly attractive for its exploitation in many
applicative domains, such as the detection of pipeline in the soil, coal in canalizations, as well as
moisture sensing in agriculture areas, wood industry or for food quality assessments (1)-(3). However,
based on cumbersome microwave equipment, microwave dielectric spectroscopy has been for long
limited to macroscale developments.
With the advent of the micro and nanotechnologies, new applicative opportunities have
opened up in chemistry, biology and medicine notably. Due to the resonant frequency of the water
molecules in the microwave band, the technique is particularly sensitive to biological materials, which
naturally exhibit a high-water content. Combined with the use and the manipulation of small liquid
volumes, this sensing technique has been successfully developed for molecular and cellular analysis
(4)-(5). The technique has been applied to tissues, cells suspensions and down to individual cells
analysis. It was also demonstrated for cell quantification, identification and the monitoring of biological
processes, while cells were maintained in their traditional environment, their culture medium.
Attractively for cellular investigations, the sensing technique is also non-invasive and label free. And
more interestingly, due to the employed high frequency range, the electromagnetic fields may bypass
the capacitive cytoplasmic membrane and penetrate inside the cells, revealing quantitative
information related to the intracellular dielectric activity. This spectroscopic method consequently
appears suitable to analyze internal variations of cells, which notably involve water molecules
interaction modifications.
To verify such an ability, different physical or chemical stimuli applied on various cell lines have
been investigated. Among them is the application of millisecond pulsed electric fields at different
intensity levels on cell suspensions. Impact of such fields on the dielectric responses will be presented
at the single cell level, highlighting the characterization possibility of the microwave dielectric
spectroscopy compare to a traditional gold standard technique.
Origin : Files produced by the author(s)