Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, The City College of the City University of New York, 160 Convent Ave., New York, New York 10031
  • 2 Department of Biomedical Engineering, The City College of the City University of New York, 160 Convent Ave., New York, New York 10031
  • 3 Department of Mechanical Engineering, New York Institute of Technology, Northern Boulevard, P.O. Box 8000, Old Westbury, New York 11568
  • 4 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Gombak, 53100 Selangor, Malaysia
Biointerphases, 2020 03 26;15(2):021006.
PMID: 32216379 DOI: 10.1116/1.5142722

Abstract

This paper presents the use of a commercial quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) to investigate live-cell activity in water-based toxic solutions. The QCM used in this research has a resonant frequency of 10 MHz and consists of an AT-cut quartz crystal with gold electrodes on both sides. This QCM was transformed into a functional biosensor by integrating with polydimethylsiloxane culturing chambers. Rainbow trout gill epithelial cells were cultured on the resonators as a sensorial layer. The fluctuation of the resonant frequency, due to the change of cell morphology and adhesion, is an indicator of water toxicity. The shift in the resonant frequency provides information about the viability of the cells after exposure to toxicants. The toxicity result shows distinct responses after exposing cells to 0.526 μM of pentachlorophenol (PCP) solution, which is the Military Exposure Guidelines concentration. This research demonstrated that the QCM is sensitive to a low concentration of PCP and no further modification of the QCM surface was required.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.