Experimental study on dielectric properties of yeast cells in micro channel by impedance spectroscopy

Abstract

Impedance spectroscopy has been proved to be a useful technique for analyzing heterogeneous systems, especially biological cell suspensions and tissues because of its capacity of non-invasive measurement. In the present paper, experiments were conducted to study the dielectric properties of yeast cells by Impedance Spectroscopy. The capacitance of the suspension of yeast cells was measured and the relative permittivity and the dielectric loss were calculated. As the concentration of yeast cells increased, the relative permittivity and the dielectric loss were also increased. In addition, the relative permittivity and the dielectric loss of living cells were higher than that of the dead ones. Finally, we concluded that it is possible to sense the status and the concentration of cell suspension by impedance spectroscopy.