Abstract
Microfluidics impedance cytometry is an emerging research tool for high throughput analysis of dielectric properties of cells and internal cellular components. This label-free method can be used in different biological assays including particle sizing and enumeration, cell phenotyping and disease diagnostics. Herein, we review recent developments in single cell impedance cytometer platforms, their biomedical and clinical applications, and discuss the future directions and challenges in this field.
Highlights
Single cell analysis has gained considerable attention for biological assays and system biology in the past decade due to the increasing importance of studying cell populations that are highly heterogeneous, as well as sampling of complex biofluids such as blood
Coulter counter detects a change in direct current (DC) or low frequency alternating current (AC) impedance signal caused by particle or cell passing through the detection region which can provide information about particle size [3,4]
The complex permittivity of the mixture can be determined by three key parameters, which are the complex permittivity of the cell, complex permittivity of its suspending medium and volume fraction, which is the ratio of volume of the cell to the volume of the channel
Summary
Single cell analysis has gained considerable attention for biological assays and system biology in the past decade due to the increasing importance of studying cell populations that are highly heterogeneous, as well as sampling of complex biofluids such as blood. Bulk measurement can only reflect the average value, leading to a loss of valuable information about rare sub-populations (diseased cells or abnormal cells) present in the sample [1,2]. In bio-related studies, coulter counter and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) are widely used as high throughput cell counting and classification methods. Coulter counter detects a change in direct current (DC) or low frequency alternating current (AC) impedance signal caused by particle or cell passing through the detection region which can provide information about particle size [3,4]. FACS is a more powerful technique and requires fluorescent cell labelling to enable counting, characterization and sorting based on optical characteristics. Several drawbacks including laborious sample preparation, and expensive equipment and reagents (antibodies) significantly limit its use for point-of-care (POC) testing
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