Real-time monitoring approach: Assessment of effects of antibodies on the adhesion of NCI-H460 cancer cells to the extracellular matrix

This paper presents an in situ impedance chip system, which allows studying the effects of drugs on the behaviors of living cell in real-time. A new label-free measurement approach is introduced, which enables to assess the extent of the adhesion of a cell population to the extracellular matrix (ECM)-coated microelectrode array, by adding together all the impedance changes from individually controlled microelectrodes. A high sensitivity was demonstrated and allowed us to monitor cell attachment with the resolution of a “few cells”. The dose and pre-incubation time effects of antibodies against β1-integrin and its subunit α2β1-integrin on the adhesion behavior of NCI-H460 lung cancer cells to collagen type I was extensively studied. Results show that both anti-β1-integrin and anti-α2β1-integrin inhibit NCI-H460 cells attachment to collagen I. This indicates that β1-integrin is present on the surface of NCI-H460 cancer cells, and that its subunit α2β1 significantly affects NCI-H460 cells attachment on collagen I.