A comparative study of nano-scale coatings on gold electrodes for bioimpedance studies of breast cancer cells.

The relative sensitivity of standard gold microelectrodes for electric cell-substrate impedance sensing was compared with that of gold microelectrodes coated with gold nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, or electroplated gold to introduce nano-scale roughness on the surface of the electrodes. For biological solutions, the electroplated gold coated electrodes had significantly higher sensitivity to changes in conductivity than electrodes with other coatings. In contrast, the carbon nanotube coated electrodes displayed the highest sensitivity to MDA-MB-231 metastatic breast cancer cells. There was also a significant shift in the peak frequency of the cancer cell bioimpedance signal based on the type of electrode coating. The results indicate that nano-scale coatings which introduce varying degrees of surface roughness can be used to modulate the frequency dependent sensitivity of the electrodes and optimize electrode sensitivity for different bioimpedance sensing applications.