Glucose Dehydrogenase based Microsensor for Online Measurement of Cell Dynamics

In medical and pharmacological studies, it is necessary to investigate efficacy of drug candidates under development. Conventionally, cell-based assays using human cells are widely carried out as an alternative method to animal tests in vitro. However, it is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness over time of drugs using conventional methods which are not capable of measuring cell dynamics. So far, we propose microfluidic devices integrated with a glucose sensor for measurement of cell dynamics. Because cells consume glucose as an energy source, glucose consumption is an important indicator related to cell’s activities. In this study, we aim to develop a microfluidic device integrated with a glucose dehydrogenase （GDH）based glucose sensor with a dialysis membrane for long-term online measurement of cell activities. We evaluated function of a GDH-based glucose sensor with a dialysis membrane for long-term measurement. The results showed that dialysis membranes prevent dissolving the mediators into solutions, suggesting that it is possible to measure cell dynamics long-term on-line on the microfluidic device.