Effect of frozen-thaw injury on cell membrane and bio-impedance

Biological samples exhibit frequency dependent spectra caused by a dispersion mechanism. This dispersion mechanism demonstrates dielectric relaxation due to the interaction between electromagnetic field and biological samples at cellular levels. Hence, biological impedance spectroscopy may be used to reveal the electrical and geometrical properties of biological samples, in particular, frozen-thaw injury. Frozen-thaw injury is known as one of the most common factors that can influence the bio-impedance spectroscopy of biological samples. However, the mechanism of how frozen-thaw injury influences the bio-impedance spectroscopy at cellular levels has not been analysed. In this paper, the influence of frozen-thaw injury on beta dispersion was experimentally investigated using the AC conduction (contact electrode) method on potato and pork samples. From the results of the experiment, we assumed that frozen-thaw injury mainly influences the impedance spectroscopy of a potato and pork by breaking their cell membranes. In light of this assumption, a novel FEM model to simulate membrane breakage was developed and a microscopic experiment was then carried out to identify the membrane integrity. In this paper, the influence of frozen-thaw injury on dielectric properties of biological cells suspension was simulated using a custom developed FEM solver and an originally designed cell model. In its 2D version, the AC conduction case was simulated. Then, in the attempt to confirm the assumption, a microscopic experiment was conducted to determine if the cell membrane was broken or not. The measurement and simulation results suggest that bio-impedance measurements provide an indication of cellular structural changes of biological samples, which could be useful for biomedical, pharmaceutical and food inspection applications.

[1]  P. Ekdunge,et al.  Proton Conductivity of Nafion 117 as Measured by a Four‐Electrode AC Impedance Method , 1996 .

[2]  Grace C. Kimball,et al.  The Growth of Yeast in a Magnetic Field , 1938, Journal of bacteriology.

[3]  W. Yin,et al.  Bio-impedance spectroscopy for frozen-thaw of bio-samples: Non-contact inductive measurement and finite element (FE) based cell modelling , 2020 .

[4]  R H Bayford,et al.  Multi-frequency electrical impedance tomography (EIT) of the adult human head: initial findings in brain tumours, arteriovenous malformations and chronic stroke, development of an analysis method and calibration , 2006, Physiological measurement.

[5]  S. Mukhopadhyay,et al.  A Novel Planar-Type Biosensor for Noninvasive Meat Inspection , 2007, IEEE Sensors Journal.

[6]  Koji Asami,et al.  Dielectric dispersion in biological cells of complex geometry simulated by the three-dimensional finite difference method , 2006 .

[7]  C. T. Chan,et al.  Characterization of three-dimensional tissue cultures using electrical impedance spectroscopy. , 1999, Biophysical journal.

[8]  H. Fricke,et al.  The Maxwell-Wagner Dispersion in a Suspension of Ellipsoids , 1953 .

[9]  W Van Driessche,et al.  Frequency-dependent capacitance of the apical membrane of frog skin: dielectric relaxation processes. , 1999, Biophysical journal.

[10]  E Gheorghiu.  Characterizing cellular systems by means of dielectric spectroscopy. , 1996, Bioelectromagnetics.

[11]  W. J. Dower,et al.  High efficiency transformation of E. coli by high voltage electroporation , 1988, Nucleic Acids Res..

[12]  K. Sekine,et al.  Finite-element calculations for dielectric relaxation of one-sphere systems in a parallel-electrode measuring cell , 1999 .

[13]  Keith D. Paulsen,et al.  Electrical impedance spectroscopy of the breast: clinical imaging results in 26 subjects , 2002, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging.

[14]  Carretera de Valencia,et al.  The finite element method in electromagnetics , 2000 .

[15]  H. Schwan.  Electrical properties of tissues and cell suspensions: mechanisms and models , 1994, Proceedings of 16th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[16]  Hélène Morel,et al.  Body fluid volumes measurements by impedance: A review of bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) and bioimpedance analysis (BIA) methods. , 2008, Medical engineering & physics.

[17]  T Iritani,et al.  A study of the electrical bio-impedance of tumors. , 1993, Journal of investigative surgery : the official journal of the Academy of Surgical Research.

[18]  K H Jones,et al.  An improved method to determine cell viability by simultaneous staining with fluorescein diacetate-propidium iodide. , 1985, The journal of histochemistry and cytochemistry : official journal of the Histochemistry Society.

[19]  Cid Marcos Gonçalves Andrade,et al.  Electric impedance of aqueous KCl and NaCl solutions: Salt concentration dependence on components of the equivalent electric circuit , 2017 .