All polymer chip for amperometric studies of transmitter release from large groups of neuronal cells

We present an all polymer electrochemical chip for simple detection of transmitter release from large groups of cultured PC 12 cells. Conductive polymer PEDOT:tosylate microelectrodes were used together with constant potential amperometry to obtain easy-to-analyze oxidation signals from potassium-induced release of transmitter molecules.

The nature of the resulting current peaks is discussed, and the time for restoring transmitter reservoirs is studied. The relationship between released transmitters and potassium concentration was found to fit to a sigmoidal dose–response curve. Finally, we demonstrate how the presented device can be used for simple drug screening purposes, by measuring the increase of transmitter release due to short-term treatment with l-DOPA.