title: Monitoring the intracellular calcium response to a dynamic hypertonic environment.
abstract: The profiling of physiological response of cells to external stimuli at the single cell level is of importance. Traditional approaches to study cell responses are often limited by ensemble measurement, which is challenging to reveal the complex single cell behaviors under a dynamic environment. Here we report the development of a simple microfluidic device to investigate intracellular calcium response to dynamic hypertonic conditions at the single cell level in real-time. Interestingly, a dramatic elevation in the intracellular calcium signaling is found in both suspension cells (human leukemic cell line, HL-60) and adherent cells (lung cancer cell line, A549), which is ascribed to the exposure of cells to the hydrodynamic stress. We also demonstrate that the calcium response exhibits distinct single cell heterogeneity as well as cell-type-dependent responses to the same stimuli. Our study opens up a new tool for tracking cellular activity at the single cell level in real time for high throughput drug screening.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering,City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Xiaowen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences,City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Wanqing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yue
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences,City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Dandan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences,City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Jianbo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yue
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering,City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Jiaqian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering,City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences,City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.|Key Laboratory of Biochip Technology, Biotech and Health Centre,Shenzhen Research Institute of City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Mengsu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering,City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.|Key Laboratory of Biochip Technology, Biotech and Health Centre,Shenzhen Research Institute of City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China.
authors.forename: Zuankai
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D002118:Calcium / Q000032:analysis*; D020013:Calcium Signaling / Q000187:drug effects; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D018922:HL-60 Cells; D006801:Humans; D006982:Hypertonic Solutions / Q000494:pharmacology*; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D059010:Single-Cell Analysis / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D006982:Hypertonic Solutions; D002118:Calcium