Dynamic measurement of the surface stress induced by the attachment and growth of cells on Au electrode with a quartz crystal microbalance

The processes of adhesion, spreading and proliferation of human mammary cancer cells MCF-7 on two Au electrodes with different surface roughness (Rf and Rf = 3.2 or 1.1) were monitored and clearly identified with the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) technique. Analyses of the QCM responses on the resonant frequency shifts (Δf0) vs. the motional resistance changes (ΔR1) revealed a significant surface-stress effect in the involved courses, in addition to a viscodensity effect and a relatively small mass effect (especially at the smooth electrode). Experiments of fluorescence microscopy, cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were conducted to investigate the cell population on the electrode vs. the electrode-surface roughness. Simplified equations are deduced to quantitatively evaluate the surface stress, and a novel QCM method for dynamically measuring the surface stress on an electrode in cell-culture course is thus described. It was found that the smoother surface (Rf = 1.1) gave a higher surface stress during cell attachment and less cell population on it than the rougher surface (Rf = 3.2). In addition, real-time QCM monitoring showed on the same electrode the surface stress induced by hepatic normal cells being notably higher than that caused by hepatic cancer cells at cell-attachment stage, suggesting that the surface-stress measurement can exhibit the difference of adhesion-performance between the healthy and ill-behaved cells.