A. Nassar, A. Wisnewski, K. Raddassi
Feb 5, 2016
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Influential Citations
17
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Journal
Bioanalysis
Abstract
Since 1970, the invention of flow cytometry FACS has become widely used for single-cell measurements in medicine and biology [1]. In the last 30 years FACS has become the work horse to provide fast, objective and quantitative recording of fluorescent signals from individual cells as well as physical separation of cells of particular interest. A recent breakthrough, cytometry time-of-flight (CyTOF, mass cytometry), builds on flow cytometry and adds MS for unprecedented marker detection in biological samples [2,3]. CyTOF is a novel and exciting technology for real-time analysis of single cells using inductively coupled plasma TOF-MS. Current CyTOF technique allows the detection of 40 parameters at the single-cell level; this capacity will increase as more isotopes become available. CyTOF can resolve multiple metal conjugated antibodies for biomarkers detection on cells with minimal signal overlap, which maximizes the information obtained from each individual sample. To make the best use of mass cytometry to produce high-quality quantitative data from clinical samples, we must understand the experimental variables and how to minimize them. The ability to analyze multiplexed assays is of great importance for clinical diagnostic and other analytical applications. Mass cytometry is a significant advance for studies in medical fields including immunology, hematology and oncology. CyTOF has the ability to perform complex characterization at single-cell level both phenotypically and functionally from normal and diseased states. Single cell technologies have allowed researchers to measure the effects of a drug and better understand its mechanism of action. While research in drug companies is focused on the mechanism of drug–target interactions and its resulting pharmacology, CyTOF techniques may become a driving tool for biomarker discovery. There is increasing interest from a variety of disciplines for single-cell experimentation methods, such as cancer research, cardiovascular research, embryonic stem cells and development, gene expression profiling, hematopoietic stem cells and progenitors, immunity/ infectious disease, induced pluripotent stem cells, neural research and RNA sequencing [4–9]. The advantages of CyTOF are clear, and investigators employing best practices may achieve robust discovery in a routine bioanalytical setting.