Using Electric Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing to Measure Changes in the Projected Area of Individual Cells

We used an electrical cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) technique to measure changes in the projected area of individual cells. The projected area of the cell plays a significant role in cellular behavior, including cell spreading, cell growth, cell death and cell adhesion. We built a custom impedance sensing setup; we recorded real time impedance spectra of individual adherent cells; and we used two parameters extracted from each impedance spectrum to measure the changes in the projected area of the cell. The projected area of the cell determines how much electrical current was measured using ECIS; therefore, it directly governed the values of two extracted impedance parameters.