An arduino-based sensor to measure transendothelial electrical resistance

Abstract

As the most popular microcontroller, Arduino is gaining interest for prototyping and optimizing instruments. Here, we report for the first time the use of Arduino as a standalone instrument to measure cell barrier integrity. Specifically, a transendothelial/epithelial resistance (TEER) meter was fabricated with an Arduino unit. TEER is an essential biophysical measurement to evaluate the integrity of biological barriers. Characterization of the device showed that the meter could accurately measure TEERs between 132 and 82,500 Ω·cm² with <3% errors, which covers the typical TEER ranges. The temporal resolution, measurement duration, and electrode configurations can be customized to meet a broad range of experimental designs. We have successfully applied the meter to measure the TEERs of endothelial cell monolayers, finding that cells treated with histamine had lower TEER values compared to untreated cells (793.4 ± 190.5 Ω·cm² vs. 3027.5 ± 664.4 Ω∙cm²; p < 0.001), which were validated and consistent with literature standards. In conclusion, we invented a low-cost Arduino-based TEER sensor capable of accurately measuring TEERs in relevant biological ranges. We also included detailed tutorials in the supplementary information to promote translation of the technology.