Selective Killing of a Single Cancerous T24 Cell with TiO2 Semiconducting Microelectrode under Irradiation

Abstract

Abstract A titanium dioxide (TiO2) microelectrode has been applied for selective photo-killing of a single cancerous T24 cell. The anodically polarized TiO2 microelectrode effectively inactivated the T24 cell while in contact and under UV light irradiation; however, the cell was not killed when the microelectrode was located 10 μm away from the cell surface. Based on these results we concluded that the photogenerated holes and/or active oxygen species with short diffusion length are responsible for the cell death process.