Detection of Nicotine Effect on Colon Cells in a Plasmonic Platform

Introduction: Smoking as one of the causes of various diseases has encouraged worldwide studies on its adverse pharmacological effects on different organs. Nicotine may influence the smooth muscles of the colon and subsequently the gut motility, which leads to a change in the moving rate of digested material through the gastrointestinal tract. Methods: Among various techniques, optical detection methods benefit from non-contact and highsensitivity for studying the early effect of nicotine on the cells. Thus, we used an optically ellipsometric method to get the fast and sensitive nicotine effect on the colon cell. Two-dimensional plasmonic platforms by gold deposition onto the polydimethylsiloxane polymer (PDMS) patterned substrate were used as the guest medium of the cell and the sample was excited by all of the visible region wavelengths at different exposure time and maintenance time. Results: Our results showed that the phase difference between each polarization increased by augmenting the exposure time of smoke over the cell at a fixed maintenance time and there was a general red-shift by increasing the maintenance time at a fixed exposure time. Conclusion: Using different exposure time to cigarette smoke, we optically showed that the cigarette containing the addicting chemical of nicotine had a direct effect on the cultured colon cells on our 2D biocompatible plasmonic chip. It demonstrated considerable changes in the amplitude and phase of the interacted light by injecting nicotine into the system with the aid of the label-free and non-invasive plasmonic technique.