Electric Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing as a Screening Tool for Wound Healing Agents

As one of the earliest matured techniques for in vitro cell migration study in wound healing, traditional scratch assay has been routinely utilized due to its simplicity of setup in cell culture. However, with the emerging needs of acquiring high sensitivity and achieving high-throughput in cell behavior study, researchers in life science started to apply electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS) technology, with its automated real-time impedance monitoring and standard electrical wounding, in various study fields. Nonetheless, not much information is available regarding the application of ECIS in the screening of wound healing agents. Here we first reviewed the applications of both traditional scratch assay and ECIS model in wound healing. We further used a herbal formula NF3 (comprising of individual herbs Astragali Radix and Rehmanniae Radix in the ratio of 2:1) which was previously shown to exhibit profound wound-healing effect in diabetic foot ulcer rat model, as an example for comparison of cell migration studies using both traditional scratch assay and ECIS model. To conclude, with its high sensitivity and efficiency, ECIS demonstrated its reliability as a tool for the screening of wound healing agents.