Panoramic quantitative phase imaging of adherent live cells in a microfluidic environment

Area of Science:

• Cell Biology
• Microfluidics
• Biophysics

Background:

• Understanding cellular responses to external stimuli is vital.
• Existing systems lack simultaneous stimulation and imaging capabilities for live cells in natural states.
• Organelle behavior under controlled microfluidic conditions remains underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel microfluidic stimulation and observation system.
• To enable simultaneous stimulation and high-resolution imaging of live cells.
• To quantify cellular and organelle responses to microfluidic stimuli in a label-free manner.

Main Methods:

• Development of a microfluidic device integrated with flat-fielding quantitative phase contrast microscopy (FF-QPCM).
• Application of controlled microfluidic stimuli (shear stress, temperature, drug induction) to live cells.
• Label-free tracking and quantification of cellular morphology and organelle distribution, particularly mitochondria.

Main Results:

• Successfully tracked organelle behavior in live cells under controlled microfluidic stimulation.
• Quantified cellular response to shear stress, including directional shrinkage and mitochondrial redistribution.
• Characterized cellular and mitochondrial responses to varying temperature and drug induction times.

Conclusions:

• The novel FF-QPCM microfluidic platform facilitates simultaneous stimulation and label-free imaging of live cells.
• This system enables detailed analysis of organelle-level responses to microfluidic stimuli.
• The platform holds significant potential for advancing life science research in microfluidic environments.