3D projection electrophoresis for single-cell immunoblotting

Nat Commun. 2020 Dec 4;11(1):6237. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19738-1.

Abstract

Immunoassays and mass spectrometry are powerful single-cell protein analysis tools; however, interfacing and throughput bottlenecks remain. Here, we introduce three-dimensional single-cell immunoblots to detect both cytosolic and nuclear proteins. The 3D microfluidic device is a photoactive polyacrylamide gel with a microwell array-patterned face (xy) for cell isolation and lysis. Single-cell lysate in each microwell is "electrophoretically projected" into the 3rd dimension (z-axis), separated by size, and photo-captured in the gel for immunoprobing and confocal/light-sheet imaging. Design and analysis are informed by the physics of 3D diffusion. Electrophoresis throughput is > 2.5 cells/s (70× faster than published serial sampling), with 25 immunoblots/mm2 device area (>10× increase over previous immunoblots). The 3D microdevice design synchronizes analyses of hundreds of cells, compared to status quo serial analyses that impart hours-long delay between the first and last cells. Here, we introduce projection electrophoresis to augment the heavily genomic and transcriptomic single-cell atlases with protein-level profiling.

Publication types

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

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cytosol / metabolism
  • Diffusion
  • Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel / methods*
  • Finite Element Analysis
  • Humans
  • Immunoblotting / methods*
  • Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / instrumentation
  • Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / methods*
  • Nuclear Proteins / analysis
  • Proteins / analysis*
  • Single-Cell Analysis / methods*

Substances

  • Nuclear Proteins
  • Proteins