An electrochemical biosensor to distinguish between normal and cancer cells based on monitoring their acidosis using gold-coated silicon Nano-roughened electrode

Abstract

One of the most interesting fields of research in cancer diagnosis is tracing the relation between extracellular media and cancer progression. Detecting the secreting contents of the cells and translating these molecular identifications into label-free recognizable patterns would open new opportunities in cancer research. Electrochemical responses are in the range of most attractive sensing mechanisms especially in biochemical approaches. Perturbed ionic exchanges as a known biochemical function of cancer cells presented a strong correlation with the pH of the tumor microenvironment. Different ionic activities detected by an electrochemical bio-sensing system in the malignant and normal cells in the presence of acidic ambient were our main results presented in this research. Herein, silicon Nano-roughened substrate as a well-known electrochemical interface was applied in the construction of the biosensor. Viability rate as well as apoptotic factors involving in cancer progression were assessed by biochemical assays in normal (MCF10A) and cancer (MCF7 and MDA-MB468) breast cells. Our findings demonstrated that pH-based electrochemical responses were matched with the results obtained from the biological analyses of both normal and malignant cells. Induction of acidosis in the cells followed by monitoring their electrochemical responses would be a new trend in microenvironment based cancer investigation.

Keywords: Acidosis; Cancer cell; Electrochemical sensor; Membrane depolarization; Silicon nano-roughened; pH.