There is a growing appreciation that cellular electrical mechanisms play an important

role both in cell regulation, and in cell dysregulation in diseases such as cancer.

These electrical mechanisms are measured using several different methods, which

yield characteristics including the membrane potential, capacitance and conductance,

the extracellular (ζ) potential and cytoplasm conductivity. However, since these are

measured using different techniques, the combination of all of these (the cancer electrome)

has yet to be described. In this paper, we report on the difference between the

electromes of cervical cancer cell line HeLa, with clinically-derived primary cervical

epithelial cells. These were investigated using dielectrophoresis (DEP) and ζ-

potential, with these data then being used to calculate the membrane potential Vm.

Results indicate significant differences in membrane conductance and capacitance,

membrane potential, ζ-potential and cytoplasm conductivity between the two cell

types. Furthermore, treatment with the K+ blocker Tetraethylammonium caused

distinct alterations in electrophysiology of the two lineages, pointing towards different

roles for K+ in cancer and normal cells. This work presents a novel and cost-effective

approach, combining five distinct electrical properties to form a “fingerprint” to characterize

and discriminate healthy and malignant cells in a label-free, rapid manner.