A novel impedance assay for cardiac myocyte hypertrophy sensing

Cardiac hypertrophy is the heart's response to a variety of extrinsic and intrinsic stimuli that impose increased biomechanical stress that may be regulated by growth factor such as Endothelin-1 (ET-1). The majority of existing techniques to monitor hypertrophy in vitro are based on florescence probes designed to show morphological and biochemical alterations indicative of cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. In this work, a new cardiomyocyte-based impedance sensing system with the assistance of dielectrophoresis (DEP) cell concentration is developed to monitor the dynamics process of ET-1 induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. This device can increase the sensitivity of the impedance system and also has the potential to reduce the time for detection by a significant factor.