Panoramic quantitative phase imaging of adherent live cells in a microfluidic environment

Abstract

Understanding how cells respond to external stimuli is crucial. However, there are a lack of inspection systems capable of simultaneously stimulating and imaging cells, especially in their natural states. This study presents a novel microfluidic stimulation and observation system equipped with flat-fielding quantitative phase contrast microscopy (FF-QPCM). This system allowed us to track the behavior of organelles in live cells experiencing controlled microfluidic stimulation. Using this innovative imaging platform, we successfully quantified the cellular response to shear stress including directional cellular shrinkage and mitochondrial distribution change in a label-free manner. Additionally, we detected and characterized the cellular response, particularly mitochondrial behavior, under varying fluidic conditions such as temperature and drug induction time. The proposed imaging platform is highly suitable for various microfluidic applications at the organelle level. We advocate that this platform will significantly facilitate life science research in microfluidic environments.

Quantitative phase imaging techniques for measuring scattering properties of cells and tissues: a review—part I

“…This success can be attributed to the high phase sensitivity, label-free operation, and noninvasive properties of QPI. 4 , 34 , 109 It is known that the dry mass density is linearly proportional to the phase map, and hence through the knowledge of phase obtained through QPI applications, such as monitoring the growth of cells, 50 , 110 – 117 understanding brain and neuronal networks, 113 , 118 – 124 measurement of cellular dynamics, 50 , 115 , 116 , 119 , 123 , 125 – 129 organelle detection and characterization, 130 cancer tissue pathology, 131 – 134 virology, 33 , 135 reproductive science, 136 – 141 etc., have been studied. In addition to the applications discussed with each QPI configuration in Sec.…”