Integrated Mini-Pillar Platform for Wireless Real-Time Cell Monitoring

Cell culture as the cornerstone of biotechnology remains a labor-intensive process requiring continuous manual oversight and substantial time investment. In this work, we propose an integrated mini-pillar platform for in situ monitoring of multiple cellular metabolism processes, which achieves media anchoring and cell culture through an arrayed mini-pillar chip. The assembly of polyaniline (PANI)/dendritic gold-modified microelectrode biosensors exhibits high sensitivity (63.55 mV/pH) and excellent interference resistance, enabling real-time acquisition of biosensing signals. We successfully employed such integrated devices to real-time measuring pH variations in multiple cells and real-time monitoring of cell metabolism under drug interventions and to facilitate in situ assisted cultivation of 3-dimensional (3D) cell spheroids. This mini-pillar array-based cell culture platform exhibits excellent biosensing sensitivity and real-time monitoring capability, offering considerable potential for the advancement of biotechnology and medical drug development.