Single-cell detection of DMSO promoted HL-60 differentiation towards
granulocyte based on DC-iDEP for medicine screening
Abstract
Acute leukemia is the most common form of leukemia in adults. Drug
differentiation control is critical for the treatment of acute leukemia.
Unfortunately, current techniques detecting differentiation control
experience long time and complex steps of verification hindering the
steps of medicine discovery: flow cytometry and RT-PCR are highly
accurate and efficient at a cost of inconvenient fluorescent labeling or
a high risk of contamination; conventional staining leads to cell death
unavailable for further pharmacological tests. Simple, fast and
non-invasive techniques for medicine screening are in demand. DC-iDEP is
an emerging label-free identification technique sorting cell populations
taking advantage of the whole cell native biophysical property. Here,
HL-60 cell line has been used as a model to study the differentiation
process towards granulocytes and medicine efficacy. The results showed
that DEP could detect the DMSO promoted differentiation degree by the
weighted average characterization factor. This factor is related to the
single cell biophysical property, which accumulate to generate
differences in each population with distinct constitutions. Furthermore,
chichoric acid was first found to promote DMSO-induced differentiation
efficiently. The change induced by chichoric acid has been detected by
DEP for primary medicine screening application. A rapid, label-free
medicine screening method has been established monitoring HL-60
differentiation towards granulocyte for control and has great potential
for medicine screening.