Classification of Cells with Membrane Staining and/or Fixation Based on Cellular Specific Membrane Capacitance and Cytoplasm Conductivity

Micromachines

Song-Bin Huang²  Yang Zhao³  Deyong Chen³  Shing-Lun Liu²  Yana Luo³  Tzu-Keng Chiu¹  Junbo Wang³  Jian Chen³  Min-Hsien Wu² 

[1] Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan 333, Taiwan; E-Mail:;Graduate Institute of Biochemical and Biomedical Engineering, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan 333, Taiwan; E-Mails:;State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology, Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; E-Mails:

关键词: single-cell analysis;    cellular electrical properties;    specific membrane capacitance;    cytoplasm conductivity;    microfluidics;   

DOI  :  10.3390/mi6020163

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Single-cell electrical properties (e.g., specific membrane capacitance (C_{specific membrane}) and cytoplasm conductivity (σ_cytoplasm)) have been regarded as potential label-free biophysical markers for the evaluation of cellular status. However, whether there exist correlations between these biophysical markers and cellular status (e.g., membrane-associate protein expression) is still unknown. To further validate the utility of single-cell electrical properties in cell type classification, C_{specific membrane} and σ_cytoplasm of single PC-3 cells with membrane staining and/or fixation were analyzed and compared in this study. Four subtypes of PC-3 cells were prepared: untreated PC-3 cells, PC-3 cells with anti-EpCAM staining, PC-3 cells with fixation, and fixed PC-3 cells with anti-EpCAM staining. In experiments, suspended single cells were aspirated through microfluidic constriction channels with raw impedance data quantified and translated to C_{specific membrane} and σ_cytoplasm. As to experimental results, significant differences in C_{specific membrane} were observed for both live and fixed PC-3 cells with and without membrane staining, indicating that membrane staining proteins can contribute to electrical properties of cellular membranes. In addition, a significant decrease in σ_cytoplasm was located for PC-3 cells with and without fixation, suggesting that cytoplasm protein crosslinking during the fixation process can alter the cytoplasm conductivity. Overall, we have demonstrated how to classify single cells based on cellular electrical properties.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.