Plasmonic imaging of living pancreatic beta-cell networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new plasmonic imaging method to study electrical activity in living pancreatic beta-cells, offering insights into diabetes and other biological processes.

Contribution

The novel plasmonic imaging technique enables real-time, label-free tracking of bioelectrical interactions in live beta-cell networks.

Findings

SPRM reveals synchronized glucose-induced intensity oscillations suppressed by calcium channel blockers.

The method captures subcellular-scale oscillations and their extracellular spread.

Network analysis quantifies coordinated electrical activity using amplitude and phase-based metrics.

Abstract

We present a novel plasmonic imaging technique for real-time, label-free tracking of bioelectrical interactions in live pancreatic beta-cell networks. Surface plasmon resonance microscopy (SPRM) is utilized to reveal synchronized glucose-induced intensity oscillations that are suppressed by calcium channel blockers. These oscillations are observed at the subcellular scale with a resolution of 1 μm. The technique can also uncover the extracellular spread of these oscillations beyond the cells. We further combine SPRM with network analysis to quantify coordinated electrical activity within the living cell network using both amplitude and phase-based metrics. Our results demonstrate a new method for studying electrical communication in pancreatic beta-cells, which could be crucial for understanding dysregulation in diabetes and advancing treatment development. This technique holds promise for investigating electrical connectivity in biological cell networks with applications in neuroscience, cardiac science, and bioelectricity in cancer, microbiology, development and regeneration.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-34094-0.

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