A continuous-flow acoustofluidic cytometer for single-cell mechanotyping

Lab Chip. 2019 Jan 29;19(3):387-393. doi: 10.1039/c8lc00711j.

Abstract

The biophysical properties of cells such as their compressibility have been found to be closely related to disease progression such as cancer development and metastasis. As cancer cells are heterogeneous, rapid and high-throughput evaluation of cell biophysical properties at single-cell resolution is needed to assess their potential as biomarkers for cancer staging and prognosis. Acoustofluidics has shown promise as a contactless method for accurately measuring cell biophysical properties; however, previously reported methods had relatively low throughput due to their requirement of no-flow conditions. This work presents a high-throughput continuous flow-based acoustofluidic cell mechanotyping method at single-cell resolution that retains the advantage of simplicity and low-cost.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Acoustics*
  • Biomechanical Phenomena
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Flow Cytometry / instrumentation*
  • Humans
  • Mechanical Phenomena*
  • Single-Cell Analysis / instrumentation*