Single cell imaging using electrical impedance tomography

Electrical impedance spectroscopy is a non-invasive technology for characterizing the dielectric properties of biological tissues and cells. Electrical impedance tomography extends impedance measurements from one dimension to two or three dimensions. Impedance measurements are performed across multiple electrodes, mapping the conductivity distribution within an object. In this paper, electrical impedance tomography is used to image a multi-nucleated cell, Physarum polycephalum, growing on agar gel in a miniaturized chip containing a circular 16-electrode array. An impedance analyzer combined with a USB-controlled multiplexing circuit board is used to perform adjacent impedance measurements. An open source software, EIDORS is used for image reconstruction and the system is evaluated using finite element modeling. Experimentally, a preliminary reconstructed image of Physarum is shown. The system has the potential to monitor kinetics of cells culture.