Locally-Patterned Parylene Membrane Enables Electrical Resistance Measurement for a Cellular Barrier Consisting of < 100 Cells

We present a system for measuring electrical resistance of a cellular barrier consisting of <; 100 cells. We fabricated a parylene membrane with pores etched by photolithography technique and bonded it to Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) wells by H
₂
O vapor plasma treatment. This membrane separated the well into two compartments. In our system, since the placement and number of pores were easy to control, the pore-etched part of the membrane was fully covered with cells. Thus, electrical resistance was easily measured using only a small number of cells. As a demonstration of the measurement with the system, Caco-2 cells were seeded on an upper side of the membrane, and the resistance was measured using a volt-ohm meter.