Monitoring sepsis using electrical cell profiling

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Immunology
• Clinical Diagnostics

Background:

• Sepsis is a life-threatening condition requiring early detection and monitoring.
• Activated leukocytes are key indicators of sepsis severity.
• Current methods for leukocyte analysis can be time-consuming.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the potential of Iso-dielectric separation (IDS) for label-free characterization of leukocyte activation.
• To develop and validate a high-throughput IDS platform for sepsis monitoring.
• To correlate IDS measurements with established methods like flow cytometry.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Iso-dielectric separation (IDS) based on dielectrophoresis (DEP) to differentiate between activated and non-activated leukocytes.
• Developed a double-sided IDS platform to enhance throughput and reduce cell fouling.
• Applied the IDS platform to peripheral blood samples from a mouse model of polymicrobial sepsis (cecal ligation and puncture).

Main Results:

• Demonstrated distinct electrical properties between activated and non-activated leukocytes using IDS.
• Showcased the improved performance of the double-sided IDS platform for rapid, high-throughput cell analysis.
• Established a correlation between IDS-based electrical cell profiling and flow cytometry (FC) results in a sepsis model.

Conclusions:

• IDS offers a label-free, rapid method for quantifying activated leukocytes.
• The developed double-sided IDS platform is suitable for high-throughput analysis in sepsis monitoring.
• Electrical cell profiling via IDS shows promise as a tool for real-time sepsis severity assessment.