Whole cell capacitance measurement of a single or few cells at controlled distances gives valuable information on cell activities and intercellular interactions. However, conventional techniques require either averaging the values of uncontrolled number of cells cultured on or between electrodes or altering the cell membrane structure to fit cells into the patch or a narrow capillary. In this study, we report a biosensor which allows in situ capacitance measurement via simultaneous optical tweezing. Single, double, triple and multiple cells with predetermined spacing and alignments (horizontal, vertical or mixed) were carefully placed between two electrodes by using optical tweezing technique and in situ cell capacitances were measured. Measured capacitance values were further processed to represent the capacitance of an individual cell in each case. We found that calculated capacitance values non-linearly increased as the cell numbers increased depending on the cell alignments. Furthermore, comparison of capacitance values of adjacent and spaced cells indicated the presence of electrostatic interaction between neighboring cells.

在受控距离处对单个或几个细胞的全细胞电容测量可提供有关细胞活性和细胞间相互作用的有价值的信息。然而，常规技术需要对在电极上或电极之间培养的不受控制的细胞数取平均值，或者改变细胞膜结构以使细胞适合于贴剂或狭窄的毛细管。在这项研究中，我们报告了一种生物传感器，该传感器可以通过同时进行光镊来进行原位电容测量。使用光镊技术将具有预定间距和排列方式（水平，垂直或混合）的单，双，三和多个电池小心地放置在两个电极之间，并测量原位电池电容。在每种情况下，对测得的电容值进行进一步处理以代表单个电池的电容。我们发现，计算的电容值随电池数量的增加而非线性增加，具体取决于电池排列方式。此外，相邻和间隔单元的电容值的比较表明相邻单元之间存在静电相互作用。