On-Chip Quantitative Measurement of Mechanical Stresses During Cell Migration with Emulsion Droplets

The ability of immune cells to migrate within narrow and crowded spaces is a critical feature involved in various physiological processes from immune response to metastasis. Several in-vitro techniques have been developed so far to study the behaviour of migrating cells, the most recent being based on the fabrication of microchannels within which cells move. To address the question of the mechanical stress a cell is able to produce during the encounter of an obstacle while migrating, we developed a hybrid microchip made of parallel PDMS channels in which oil droplets are sparsely distributed and serve as deformable obstacles. We thus show that cells strongly deform droplets while passing them. Then, we show that the microdevice can be used to study the influence of drugs on migration at the population level. Finally, we describe a quantitative analysis method of the droplet deformation that allows measuring in real-time the mechanical stress exerted by a single cell. The method presented herein thus constitutes a powerful analytical tool for cell migration studies under confinement.