Tran Linh Nguyen T, Paz Gonzalez Karla Mercedes, Choe Hyeon, Wu Xian, Strayer Jacob, Iyer Poornima Ramesh, Zborowski Maciej, Chalmers Jeffrey, Gomez-Pastora Jenifer
Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA.
William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Micromachines (Basel). 2025 Jan 23;16(2):126. doi: 10.3390/mi16020126.
Hematological analysis is crucial for diagnosing and monitoring blood-related disorders. Nevertheless, conventional hematology analyzers remain confined to laboratory settings due to their high cost, substantial space requirements, and maintenance needs. Herein, we present a portable cell tracking velocimetry (CTV) device for the precise measurement of the magnetic susceptibility of biological entities at the single-cell level, focusing on red blood cells (RBCs) in this work. The system integrates a microfluidic channel positioned between permanent magnets that generate a well-defined magnetic field gradient (191.82 TA/mm). When the cells are injected into the chamber, their particular response to the magnetic field is recorded and used to estimate their properties and quantify their intracellular hemoglobin (Hb) concentration. We successfully track over 400 RBCs per condition using imaging and trajectory analysis, enabling detailed characterizations of their physical and magnetic properties. A comparison of the mean corpuscular hemoglobin measurements revealed a strong correlation between our CTV system and standard ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry (23.1 ± 5.8 pg vs. 22.4 ± 3.9 pg, > 0.05), validating the accuracy of our measurements. The system's single-cell resolution reveals population distributions unobtainable through conventional bulk analysis methods. Thus, this portable CTV technology provides a rapid, label-free approach for magnetic cell characterization, offering new possibilities for point-of-care hematological analysis and field-based research applications.
血液学分析对于诊断和监测血液相关疾病至关重要。然而，传统的血液学分析仪由于成本高、空间需求大以及维护要求高，仍局限于实验室环境。在此，我们展示了一种便携式细胞追踪测速仪（CTV）设备，用于在单细胞水平精确测量生物实体的磁化率，本研究聚焦于红细胞（RBC）。该系统集成了一个位于永久磁铁之间的微流控通道，永久磁铁产生明确的磁场梯度（191.82 TA/mm）。当细胞注入腔室时，记录它们对磁场的特定响应，并用于估计其特性和量化细胞内血红蛋白（Hb）浓度。我们通过成像和轨迹分析在每种条件下成功追踪了400多个红细胞，从而能够详细表征它们的物理和磁性特性。平均红细胞血红蛋白测量值的比较显示，我们的CTV系统与标准紫外可见（UV-Vis）分光光度法之间具有很强的相关性（23.1±5.8 pg对22.4±3.9 pg，>0.05），验证了我们测量的准确性。该系统的单细胞分辨率揭示了通过传统整体分析方法无法获得的群体分布。因此，这种便携式CTV技术为磁性细胞表征提供了一种快速、无标记的方法，为即时护理血液学分析和基于现场的研究应用提供了新的可能性。
