Curcumin is a polyphenol extracted from the roots of Curcuma plants that exerts potential anticancer effects. However, owing to its low toxicity, curcumin is known to be effective only at high doses. Here, we report the highly sensitive assessment of curcumin toxicity in human liver cancer cells, which was facilitated using a fabricated conductive platform and an electrochemical detection method. To identify the best platform for assessing cell viability, both electrochemical deposition time (0–150 s) and RGD peptide concentrations (0–0.1 mg/mL) were varied. Unlike other cell types, liver cancer cells showed the highest electrical signals without the modification of cell adhesion peptides. With 120 s of gold deposition under peptide-free conditions, 10,000 cells/chip were detectable within a linear range of 10,000–500,000 cells. Notably, even at low concentrations (e.g., 20 µM), curcumin could inhibit liver cancer cell-specific electrical signals by 45%, which would be undetectable in conventional colorimetric assay (CCK-8). The half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of curcumin for HepG2 cells was 23.63 µM, which indicates 3.71-fold higher sensitivity than that determined in the CCK-8 assay (IC₅₀ = 87.88 µM). Hence, the developed conductive cell culture platform, in combination with the electrochemical detection method, could serve as a promising tool for detecting toxicity and/or anticancer activity of food-derived compounds in cancer/normal cells.

姜黄素是从姜黄根中提取的多酚具有潜在抗癌作用的植物。然而，由于姜黄素的低毒性，因此已知仅在高剂量时才有效。在这里，我们报告了姜黄素对人肝癌细胞毒性的高度敏感评估，这是通过使用预制的导电平台和电化学检测方法来促进的。为了确定评估细胞活力的最佳平台，电化学沉积时间（0-150 s）和RGD肽浓度（0-1.0 mg / mL）均不同。与其他细胞类型不同，肝癌细胞显示出最高的电信号，而没有修饰细胞粘附肽。在无肽条件下沉积120 s的金，在10,000–500,000个细胞的线性范围内可检测到10,000个细胞/芯片。值得注意的是，即使在低浓度（例如20 µM）下，姜黄素可以抑制肝癌细胞特异性电信号达45％，这在常规比色测定法（CCK-8）中是无法检测到的。半最大抑制浓度（IC姜黄素对HepG2细胞的₅₀）为23.63 µM，表明灵敏度比CCK-8分析法测定的灵敏度高3.71倍（IC ₅₀  = 87.88 µM）。因此，开发的导电细胞培养平台与电化学检测方法相结合，可以作为一种有前途的工具，用于检测食物来源的化合物在癌症/正常细胞中的毒性和/或抗癌活性。