Profiling T cell interaction and activation through microfluidics-assisted serial encounter with APCs

• Published in: Sensors and actuators. B, Chemical Vol. 330; p. 129306
• Main Authors: Ide, Hiroki, Espulgar, Wilfred Villariza, Saito, Masato, Aoshi, Taiki, Koyama, Shohei, Takamatsu, Hyota, Tamiya, Eiichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lausanne Elsevier B.V 01.03.2021; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Antigens; Ca2+ flux; Calcium ions; Lymphatic system; Lymphocytes; Microfluidic device; Microfluidics; Single cell; T cell receptors; T cell/APC interaction; Single cell; Ca2+ flux; Microfluidic device; T cell/APC interaction
• ISSN: 0925-4005; 1873-3077
• DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2020.129306

•Our developed microfluidic device provided the single-cell-level cell-cell interaction.•Ca2+ flux in a T cell was observed and showed the diversity of immune response.•The target cell was able to be retrieved and released by micromanipulator system. Adoptive T cell therapy that collected from the patient’s blood for treating cancer and chronic infections has revolutionized the field of oncology and personalized medicine. However, such highly activated T cells that have specific T cell receptor (TCR) against the target disease are usually greatly outnumbered by not-activated T cells due to the stochastic generation of TCR by V(D)J recombination, approximately 106∼107 possible TCR. In this report, for the purpose of representing the lymph node where T cells can migrate on the surface of the antigen presenting cells (APCs) for activation or sequentially interact to multiple APCs, an open-type PDMS microfluidic device has been developed. This device mimics the microenvironment of a lymph node for the T cells to scan, contact and interact with APC and has the structure for the plan to collect the cells and conduct downstream analysis later on. By measuring and profiling Ca2+ flux of the T cell that interacted with APC, the threshold classifying whether T cells activation is specific or not was calculated. This new tool is expected to be useful in providing new insight and strategy to basic biology.