Real-time High-resolution Measurement of Pancreatic β Cell Electrophysiology Based on Transparent Thin-film Transistor Microelectrode Arrays

A transparent high density thin-film-transistor microelectrode array (TFT-µEA) was investigated, for the first time, to apply to real-time electrophysiological monitoring on glucose-stimulated insulin secretion dynamics of pancreatic β cells at higher resolution than conventional microelectrode arrays (MEAs). TFT-µEAs employed in this work are designed based on the switch matrix architecture, which incorporates a large sensing area (15.6 mm × 15.6 mm) with a 150 × 150 array of indium-tin-oxide (ITO) microelectrodes placed at a 100 μm pixel pitch. TFT-µEAs coated with poly-L-lysine and laminin enabled to culture rat insulinoma β line iGL for at least 7 days without cell death, which was determined by conventional cell viability tests based on a fluorescent staining method. Real-time action potentials of iGL cells stimulated by 15 mM glucose were successfully observed in similar to those in a conventional MEAs. These results are the first step towards the development of a multimodal TFT-µEAs device for electrophysiological, biochemical and optical analyses of the pancreatic islets. TFT-µEAs would extremely be promising platforms in the bioanalysis field for neurochemistry and electrophysiology. © 2022 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.