Label-free light-sheet microfluidic cytometry for the automatic identification of senescent cells

• Published in: Biomedical optics express Vol. 9; no. 4; pp. 1692 - 1703
• Main Authors: Lin, Meiai, Liu, Qiao, Liu, Chao, Qiao, Xu, Shao, Changshun, Su, Xuantao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Optical Society of America 01.04.2018
• Subjects: (170.1530) Cell analysis; (120.5820) Scattering measurements; (170.3890) Medical optics instrumentation; (170.4580) Optical diagnostics for medicine
• ISSN: 2156-7085; 2156-7085
• DOI: 10.1364/boe.9.001692

Label-free microfluidic cytometry is of increasing interest for single cell analysis due to its advantages of high-throughput, miniaturization, as well as noninvasive detection. Here we develop a next generation label-free light-sheet microfluidic cytometer for single cell analysis by two-dimensional (2D) light scattering measurements. Our cytometer integrates light sheet illumination with a disposable hydrodynamic focusing unit, which can achieve 3D hydrodynamic focusing of a sample fluid to a diameter of 19 micrometer without microfabrication. This integration also improves the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for the acquisition of 2D light scattering patterns from label-free cells. Particle sizing with submicron resolution is achieved by our light-sheet flow cytometer, where Euclidean distance-based similarity measures are performed. Label-free, automatic classification of senescent and normal cells is achieved with a high accuracy rate by incorporating our light-sheet flow cytometry with support vector machine (SVM) algorithms. Our light-sheet microfluidic cytometry with a microfabrication-free hydrodynamic focusing unit may find wide applications for automatic and label-free clinical diagnosis.