A clinical microchip for evaluation of single immune cells reveals high functional heterogeneity in phenotypically similar T cells.

ABSTRACT: Cellular immunity has an inherent high level of functional heterogeneity. Capturing the full spectrum of these functions requires analysis of large numbers of effector molecules from single cells. We report a microfluidic platform designed for highly multiplexed (more than ten proteins), reliable, sample-efficient (∼1 × 10(4) cells) and quantitative measurements of secreted proteins from single cells. We validated the platform by assessment of multiple inflammatory cytokines from lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated human macrophages and comparison to standard immunotechnologies. We applied the platform toward the ex vivo quantification of T cell polyfunctional diversity via the simultaneous measurement of a dozen effector molecules secreted from tumor antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyt

SUBMITTER: Ma C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3681612 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature