Microfluidic active loading of single cells enables analysis of complex clinical specimens.

ABSTRACT: A fundamental trade-off between flow rate and measurement precision limits performance of many single-cell detection strategies, especially for applications that require biophysical measurements from living cells within complex and low-input samples. To address this, we introduce 'active loading', an automated, optically-triggered fluidic system that improves measurement throughput and robustness by controlling entry of individual cells into a measurement channel. We apply active loading to samples over a range of concentrations (1-1000 particles μL^-1), demonstrate that measurement time can be decreased by up to 20-fold, and show theoretically that performance of some types of existing single-cell microfluidic devices can be improved by implementing active loading. Finally, we d

SUBMITTER: Calistri NL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6235965 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature