Application of cellular micropatterns to miniaturized cell-based biosensor

Because of strong demands for high throughput or high content cell-based assay, significant efforts have focused on the assay miniaturization by fabricating cell microarray using a variety of cell patterning techniques such as spotting, photolithography or soft lithography and by integrating cell microarray into microfluidic devices. Response of cells cultured on microarray can be monitored by using either electrochemical or optical detection methods. Impedancebased detection and potential-based detection have been widely used for electrochemical detection, while optical detection relies mostly on the fluorescence and bioluminescence-based techniques. Resultant cell microarray-based biosensor can be applied for high throughput/content drug screening and detection of pathogens, pollutants and warfare agents. For the successful application of cell-based biosensors to various areas, multi-phenotypic cell microarray should be developed and cells on microarray must be cultured in 3-dimensional environment as they do in real tissue to obtain accurate response of cells against target analytes.