Issue 5, 2022

Pairing cells of different sizes in a microfluidic device for immunological synapse monitoring

Abstract

Analyzing cell–cell interaction is essential to investigate how immune cells function. Elegant designs have been demonstrated to study lymphocytes and their interaction partners. However, these devices have been targeting cells of similar dimensions. T lymphocytes are smaller, more deformable, and more sensitive to pressure than many cells. This work aims to fill the gap of a method for pairing cells with different dimensions. The developed method uses hydrodynamic flow focusing in the z-direction for on-site modulation of effective channel height to capture smaller cells as single cells. Due to immune cells' sensitivity to pressure, the proposed method provides a stable system without any change in flow conditions at the analysis area throughout experiments. Paired live cells have their activities analyzed with calcium imaging at the immunological synapse formed under a controlled environment. The method is demonstrated with primary human T lymphocytes, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cell lines, and primary AML blasts.

Graphical abstract: Pairing cells of different sizes in a microfluidic device for immunological synapse monitoring

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
21 dec 2021
Accepted
20 jan 2022
First published
26 jan 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Lab Chip, 2022,22, 908-920

Pairing cells of different sizes in a microfluidic device for immunological synapse monitoring

F. A. Shaik, C. Lewuillon, A. Guillemette, B. Ahmadian, C. Brinster, B. Quesnel, D. Collard, Y. Touil, L. Lemonnier and M. C. Tarhan, Lab Chip, 2022, 22, 908 DOI: 10.1039/D1LC01156A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements