UCLA

The cell mechanical phenotype is a useful measure to understand cell identity and state. Cell mechanical properties such as deformability can provide an understanding of cellular processes or intracellular composition without direct labeling. The cell nucleus is a significant component of the cell and it is useful to understand how it impacts cell deformability. However, high throughput methods to measure cell deformability largely cannot directly integrate nuclear information. Here we present fluorescent imaging deformability cytometry (FI-DC), a high throughput platform capable of measuring cells in flow at 0.5 m/s, while providing simultaneous brightfield and fluorescent images. This technology enables us to identify cell subpopulations by their nuclear structure, as well as identify neutrophils undergoing neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) generation.