Sensitive Detection of MCF-7 Cells Based on Poly Calcein Modified Electrode and Its Applied in Cytotoxicity Assay

It is highly desirable to develop cost-effective and sensitive cell sensors to evaluate cytotoxicity of anticancer drugs. For the first time, a simple and cheap poly calcein modified electrode(PCA/GCE) prepared by one-step in situ polymerization was applied for study the electrochemical behavior of MCF-7 cells. Since the negative charge and unique properties of calcein can increase sensitivity, the resulting linear scanning of the MCF-7 cells on electrode exhibited two anodic peak that was ascribe to xanthine/guanine(signal) and hypoxanthine/adenine (signal). Meanwhile, the nonlinear exponent relationships between peak current (I pa ) and cell concentration (C) in the wide concentration range were firstly demonstrated. Two independent index equation based on two signal were I pa (signal) = 7.458 − 6.415e (-C/52380) (R 2 = 0.986) and I pa (signal) = 4.023 − 3.773e (-C/228700) (R 2 = 0.984) with the low detection limit of 3000 cells mL -1 , respectively. Electrochemical responses based on two signals of MCF-7 cells was applied to evaluate cytotoxicity effect of cyclophosphamide (CTX) on MCF-7 cells, the result was in good agreement with that of MTT method. This proposed method could be used to evaluate cytotoxicity of drug.