Single-cell protein profiling energized by microfluidic technology

Abstract

Single-cell protein profiling furnishes exclusive insights into understanding and describing phenotypic heterogeneity in large populations, garnering significant attention from researchers. However, investigating protein information at single-cell resolution has presented significant challenges on account of the small size of cells, low abundance of proteins and scarcity of sensitive analytical methods. Microfluidics has emerged as a powerful platform for single-cell protein profiling because it enables efficient single-cell isolation, high-throughput processing of small-volume samples, and integrated microscale reactions in a user-friendly format. This review provides a broad perspective on the leading-edge microfluidic platforms for single-cell protein profiling. It showcases different microfluidic layouts for single-cell separation and explores how cutting-edge analysis techniques are integrated with these platforms for protein profiling. Furthermore, the potential challenges and future trends of microfluidics-based single-cell protein profiling are presented and evaluated.