A microfluidic device for measuring cellular membrane potential

Recent developments in microfluidics have enabled the design of a lab-on-a-chip system capable of measuring cellular membrane potential. The chip accesses liquid samples sequentially by sipping from a microplate through a capillary, mixes the samples with cells flowing through a microchannel, contacts the cells with potential-sensitive dyes, and reads out cellular responses using fluorescence detection. The rate of cellular uptake of membrane-permeable, ionic fluorophores by THP-1 cells was found to depend strongly on membrane potential. The ratio of the fluorescence of the anionic dye DiBAC(4)(3) and the cationic dye Syto 62 taken up by cells was found to double for every 33 mV change in membrane potential. The utility of this approach was demonstrated by assaying ion channel activity in human T lymphocytes. Because of the high sensitivity, low cellular and reagent consumption, and high data quality obtained with the microfluidic device, the lab-on-a-chip system should be widely applicable in high-throughput screening and functional genomics studies.