title: A microfluidic digital single-cell assay for the evaluation of anticancer drugs.
abstract: Digital single-cell assays hold high potentials for the analysis of cell apoptosis and the evaluation of chemotherapeutic reagents for cancer therapy. In this paper, a microfluidic hydrodynamic trapping system was developed for digital single-cell assays with the capability of monitoring cellular dynamics over time. The microfluidic chip was designed with arrays of bypass structures for trapping individual cells without the need for surface modification, external electric force, or robotic equipment. After optimization of the bypass structure by both numerical simulations and experiments, a single-cell trapping efficiency of ∼90 % was achieved. We demonstrated the method as a digital single-cell assay for the evaluation of five clinically established chemotherapeutic reagents. As a result, the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) values of these compounds could be conveniently determined. We further modeled the gradual decrease of active drugs over time which was often observed in vivo after an injection to investigate cell apoptosis against chemotherapeutic reagents. The developed method provided a valuable means for cell apoptotic analysis and evaluation of anticancer drugs.
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Systems Biology Theme, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430074, Wuhan, China.
authors.forename: Yao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Xiaolong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Xiaojun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Dongjuan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Bi-Feng
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000494:pharmacology*; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000187:drug effects; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000187:drug effects; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D020128:Inhibitory Concentration 50; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D059010:Single-Cell Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents