Electrical Lysis and RNA Extraction from Single Cells Fixed by Dithiobis(succinimidyl propionate)

Anal Chem. 2018 Nov 6;90(21):12512-12518. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.8b02338. Epub 2018 Oct 16.

Abstract

We present a microfluidic method for electrical lysis and RNA extraction from single fixed cells leveraging reversible cross-linker dithiobis(succinimidyl propionate) (DSP). Our microfluidic system captures a single DSP-fixed cell at a hydrodynamic trap, reverse-cross-links the DSP molecules on a chip with dithiothreitol, lyses the plasma membrane via electrical field, and extracts cytoplasmic RNA with isotachophoresis-aided nucleic acids extraction. All of the on-chip processes complete in less than 5 min. We demonstrated the method using K562 leukemia cells and benchmarked the performance of RNA extraction with reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We also demonstrated the integration of our method with single-cell RNA sequencing.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Electrolytes / chemistry
  • Humans
  • K562 Cells
  • Microfluidic Analytical Techniques*
  • RNA, Neoplasm / genetics
  • RNA, Neoplasm / isolation & purification*
  • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Single-Cell Analysis*
  • Succinimides / chemistry*
  • Tumor Cells, Cultured

Substances

  • Electrolytes
  • RNA, Neoplasm
  • Succinimides
  • dithiobis(succinimidylpropionate)