Comparison of Leading Biosensor Technologies to Measure Endothelial Adhesion, Barrier Properties, and Responses to Cytokines in Real-Time
Electric Cell-substrate Impedance Sensing (ECIS), xCELLigence and cellZscope are commercially available instruments which are able to measure the impedance of cellular monolayers continuously and with high precision. The small currents used allow the label-free, real-time monitoring of the cells in a non-invasive manner. Despite the widespread use of these systems individually, direct comparisons between the systems have not been published. In order to compare the sensitivity of the instruments, the responses of the brain microvascular endothelial cell line hCMVEC to the inflammatory cytokines TNFα and IL1β were measured on all three instruments simultaneously. All three instruments showed transient decreases, followed by prolonged increases in impedance. Although xCELLigence could detect these changes, it was unable to determine which component of the barrier was affected. In contrast, ECIS and cellZscope were both able to attribute responses to particular barrier components, and ECIS had a higher sensitivity than cellZscope. Finally, as cellZscope uses Transwells, it allows access to the basolateral compartment, an important advantage of this technology. Furthermore, although xCELLigence readings are equivalent to ECIS, the reduced frequency range greatly limits interpretation. This work demonstrates that instruments must be carefully selected in order to ensure that they are appropriate for the experimental questions being asked.