Zhang Tianyang, Yu Siyuan, Wang Bing, Xu Yitong, Shi Xiaomei, Zhao Weiwei, Jiang Dechen, Chen Hongyuan, Xu Jingjuan
State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.
Research (Wash D C). 2022 Jun 29;2022:9859101. doi: 10.34133/2022/9859101. eCollection 2022.
Ideal single-cell viscometer has remained unachieved, leaving a gap in current palette of single-cell nanotools. Information of single-cell viscosity could contribute to our knowledge of fundamental biological processes, e.g., mass diffusion, biochemical interaction, and cellular responses to many diseases and pathologies. Although advances have been made to this end, existing methods generally suffer from limitations, e.g., low spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we describe a high spatiotemporal iontronic single-cell viscometer that operates upon a patch clamp integrated with double-barreled nanopores separated by a septum of ca. 32 nm. The system enables reversible electroosmotic manipulation of the adjacent small fluid bridging two nanopores, the viscous alternation of which could be sensitively monitored by the ionic responses. In practical cellular studies, significantly, our findings reveal not only the less deviated medium viscosities than those of lysosomes and mitochondria but also the highest viscosities in the near-nuclear region than those of mitochondrion-dense and lysosome-dense regions. This work has provided an accessible single-cell viscometer and enriched the armory of single-cell nanotools.
理想的单细胞粘度计尚未实现，这在当前的单细胞纳米工具库中留下了空白。单细胞粘度信息有助于我们了解基本的生物过程，例如质量扩散、生化相互作用以及细胞对许多疾病和病理状况的反应。尽管为此已经取得了进展，但现有方法通常存在局限性，例如时空分辨率低。在此，我们描述了一种高时空分辨率的离子电子单细胞粘度计，它基于与由约32纳米隔膜隔开的双管纳米孔集成的膜片钳工作。该系统能够对连接两个纳米孔的相邻小流体进行可逆的电渗操纵，其粘性变化可通过离子响应进行灵敏监测。在实际的细胞研究中，值得注意的是，我们的研究结果不仅揭示了与溶酶体和线粒体相比偏差较小的中等粘度，而且还揭示了近核区域的粘度高于线粒体密集和溶酶体密集区域。这项工作提供了一种易于使用的单细胞粘度计，并丰富了单细胞纳米工具库。
