New device can help defend against novel biologi...( d says. The researchers tested the m...)

The researchers tested the modified device with several different toxic agents and two cell types.

In one test they added fluoride to Chinese hamster ovary cells. Fluoride blocks cells' ability to convert glucose into ATP, the chemical that cells use as an energy source. Their measurements showed that the lactate concentration and acidification rate dropped rapidly as the cell slowed its production while oxygen and glucose concentrations rose as the cell consumption slowed.

"We could see the cells basically go into hibernation," says Cliffel. "Then, when we flushed out the fluoride, we could see them start up again."

They ran similar tests with two other known metabolic poisons, antimycin A and 2,4-dinitrophenol, and a type of cell that produces connective tissue called a fibroblast and got similar results.

Last year, the Vanderbilt researchers upgraded a Cytosensor at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Since then their ECBC collaborators have been using the device to study cell response to a number of different chemical and biological agents.

Since submitting the recent paper, Cliffel's group has also successfully tested the device with two pesticides, parathion and paraoxon, and two common pollutants, the gas additive MTBE and hexachromium, the pollutant that Erin Brochovich made famous.

A paper that provides detailed instructions on how to modify the Cytosensor and multipotentiostat to make a four-channel microphysiometer has been accepted for publication by Humana Press and is scheduled to appear later in the year.

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Contact: David F. Salisbury
david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu
615-343-6803
Vanderbilt University
9-Jan-2004