title: A Facile Droplet-Chip-Time-Resolved Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry Online System for Determination of Zinc in Single Cell.
abstract: Single cell analysis is a significant research field in recent years reflecting the heterogeneity of cells in a biological system. In this work, a facile droplet chip was fabricated and online combined with time-resolved inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) via a microflow nebulizer for the determination of zinc in single HepG2 cells. On the focusing geometric designed PDMS microfluidic chip, the aqueous cell suspension was ejected and divided by hexanol to generate droplets. The droplets encapsulated single cells remain intact during the transportation into ICP for subsequent detection. Under the optimized conditions, the frequency of droplet generation is 3-6 × 106min-1, and the injected cell number is 2500 min-1, which can ensure the single cell encapsulation. ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) were used for the quantification of zinc in single cells, and the accuracy was validated by conventional acid digestion-ICPMS method. The ZnO NPs incubated HepG2 cells were analyzed as model samples, and the results exhibit the heterogeneity of HepG2 cells in the uptake/adsorption of ZnO NPs. The developed online droplet-chip-ICPMS analysis system achieves stable single cell encapsulation and has high throughput for single cell analysis. It has the potential in monitoring the content as well as distribution of trace elements/NPs at the single cell level.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University , Wuhan 430072, China.
authors.forename: Han
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University , Wuhan 430072, China.
authors.forename: Beibei
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7772-5171
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University , Wuhan 430072, China.
authors.forename: Man
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Biology and Medicine (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University , Wuhan 430072, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2171-2202
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hu
mesh_terms: D056945:Hep G2 Cells; D006801:Humans; D056656:Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry; D009862:Online Systems; D059010:Single-Cell Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D015032:Zinc / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D015032:Zinc