Combining optical and electrical impedance techniques for quantitative measurement of confluence in MDCK-I cell cultures.

A new method combining optical and electrical impedance measurements is described that enables submicroscopic cell movements to be monitored. The cells are grown on small gold electrodes that are transparent to light. This modified electrical cell-substrate impedance sensor (ECIS) allows simultaneous microscopic recording of both growth and motility, thus enabling cell confluence on the electrodes to be systematically correlated to the impedance in regular time intervals of seconds and for extended periods of time. Furthermore, the technique provides an independent measure of monolayer cell densities that we compare to calculated values from a theoretical model. We have followed the attachment and spreading behavior of epithelial Madin-Darby canine kidney strain I (MDCK-I) cell cultures on microelectrodes for up to 40 h. The studies reveal a high degree of correlation between the measured resistance at 4 kHz and the corresponding cell confluence in 4- to 6-h intervals with typical linear cross-correlation factors of r equaling approximately 0.9. In summary, the impedance measured with the ECIS technique provides a good quantitative measure of cell confluence.