Measuring single-cell density
Name
Manalis-2011-June-Measuring single-cell.pdf
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1.35 MB
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Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Grover, William H.
Bryan, Andrea Kristine
Diez Silva, Monica
Suresh, Subra
Higgins, John M.
Manalis, Scott R.
Date Issued
July 2011
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
Citation
Grover, W. H. et al. “Measuring Single-cell Density.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108.27 (2011): 10992–10996.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We have used a microfluidic mass sensor to measure the density of single living cells. By weighing each cell in two fluids of different densities, our technique measures the single-cell mass, volume, and density of approximately 500 cells per hour with a density precision of 0.001 g mL-1. We observe that the intrinsic cell-to-cell variation in density is nearly 100-fold smaller than the mass or volume variation. As a result, we can measure changes in cell density indicative of cellular processes that would be otherwise undetectable by mass or volume measurements. Here, we demonstrate this with four examples: identifying Plasmodium falciparum malaria-infected erythrocytes in a culture, distinguishing transfused blood cells from a patient’s own blood, identifying irreversibly sickled cells in a sickle cell patient, and identifying leukemia cells in the early stages of responding to a drug treatment. These demonstrations suggest that the ability to measure single-cell density will provide valuable insights into cell state for a wide range of biological processes.
MIT Department
Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1104651108
