Electrophysiological fingerprints of healthy cervical epithelial and HeLa cells: Membrane potential, zeta potential and passive electrical properties

There is a growing appreciation that cellular electrical mechanisms play an important role both in cell regulation, and in cell dysregulation in diseases such as cancer. These electrical mechanisms are measured using several different methods, which yield characteristics including the membrane potential, capacitance and conductance, the extracellular (ζ) potential and cytoplasm conductivity. However, since these are measured using different techniques, the combination of all of these (the cancer electrome) has yet to be described. In this paper, we report on the difference between the electromes of cervical cancer cell line HeLa, with clinically-derived primary cervical epithelial cells. These were investigated using dielectrophoresis (DEP) and ζ-potential, with these data then being used to calculate the membrane potential Vm. Results indicate significant differences in membrane conductance and capacitance, membrane potential, ζ-potential and cytoplasm conductivity between the two cell types. Furthermore, treatment with the K+ blocker Tetraethylammonium caused distinct alterations in electrophysiology of the two lineages, pointing towards different roles for K+ in cancer and normal cells. This work presents a novel and cost-effective approach, combining five distinct electrical properties to form a "fingerprint" to characterize and discriminate healthy and malignant cells in a label-free, rapid manner.