Detecting single-cell apoptosis and viability enabled by simultaneous real-time monitoring of receptor activation and lectin binding on the lab-in-a-trench platform

Apoptosis, the programmed death of cells, plays an important role, for instance in the natural prevention of adverse auto-immune reactions when fighting disease. In this work, we present, for the first time, a microfluidic method for real-time in vitro monitoring of apoptosis at single-cell resolution. The novel cell biology approach is enabled by the merely diffusion-driven sequential surface exposure of cells to reagents such as lectins, antibodies and stains while trapped and retained in a shear-free environment by gravity-driven sedimentation on the microfluidic ""Lab-in-a-Trench"" platform (Fig. 1-2) [1-2]. Our method constitutes a significant advancement to conventional, population-based end-point measurements using complex data analysis methods.