SMC Difference of Normal and Cancerous Human Urothelial Cells Quantified with an Opto-Electrokinetic Device

This paper reports the use of an opto-electrokinetic (OEK) device to measure the specific membrane capacitance (SMC) of malignant human bladder cancer cells (RT4) and benign human urothelial cells (SV-HUV-l). Experimental results, for the first time, show that RT4 cells (n=54) have a significantly larger SMC than SV-HUV-l cells (n=48), 15.8 ± 3.5 mF/m²vs. 12.5 ± 2.3 mF/m2, indicating that SMC could be a potentially useful biomarker for distinguishing malignant and benign human urothelial cells to aid bladder cancer detection.