Microfluidic Impedance Flow Cytometry For Single-Cell Physiology States Analysis of Tumor Cells Treated with Chemotherapy Drugs

This paper reveals comprehensive cellular states post chemotherapeutic drug treatment measured by impedance flow cytometry beyond viability change. We map the impedance features to cell cycle arrests at G1/S and G2/M phase and apoptosis for lung cancer cells treated by paclitaxel (TAX) and gemcitabine (GEM). We find that the normalized 500kHz amplitude of cells treated with paclitaxel is higher than the control group, and these cells have significant negative phase shifts. When the cells are treated with gemcitabine, the amplitude change and phase shift are generally less than that of TAX-treated cells. With the drug concentration and exposure time increasing (24h to 48h), cells begin to undergo apoptosis, and the 500kHz amplitude of cells constantly decrease. In the G1/ S and G2/M phase, the opacity of cells showed opposite changes, increasing for TAX-treated cells while decreasing for GEM-treated cells.