Controlled electroporation of the plasma membrane in microfluidic devices for single cell analysis

Chemical cytometry on a single cell level is of interest to various biological fields ranging from cancer to stem cell research. The impact chemical cytometry can exert in these fields depends on the dimensionality of the retrievable analytes content. To this point, the number of different analytes identifiable and additionally their subcellular localization is of interest. To address this, we present an electroporation based approach for selective lysis of only the plasma membrane, which permits analysis of the dissolved cytoplasm, while reducing contributions from the nucleus and membrane bound fractions of the cell analytes. The use of 100 mu s long pulse and a well defined DC electric field gradient of similar to 4.5 kV.cm(-1) generated by 3D electrodes initiates release of a cytoplasm marker in << 1 s, while retaining nuclear fluorescence markers. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3689859]