Fabrication of MSM-Based Biosensing Device for Assessing Dynamic Behavior of Adherent Mammalian Cells

Adherent mammalian cells are susceptible to the physiological conditions, i.e., physicochemical and topological properties of the extracellular microenvironment surrounding them. In this paper, cell-substrate interaction is taken as the primary step for exhibiting their optimal functions, including cell adhesion, proliferation, migration, and differentiation. Herein, the change in characteristic properties of transparent semiconducting metal oxide, ZnO thin film as a function of the progression of cellular processes and functions resulting from cell-substrate and cell-cell interactions is reported. We have monitored the change in characteristic electrical properties of ZnO thin film by a fabricated metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) structure based biosensing platform. Further, we have demonstrated the improvement in cell adhesion on ZnO thin films through the gelatin functionalization process. Furthermore, the Nyquist plot characteristics are used to investigate the electrical properties of the fabricated MSM biosensor, which gets altered with the progression of cellular functions over time. Correspondingly, it is also observed that the true impedance of the fabricated device gets increased with a noticeable shift towards the higher resistance region with a significant increase in the semi-circle diameter. Hence, we anticipate that the fabricated MSM based biosensing platform can be used as a promising device for monitoring the functional behavior of adherent cells.