Single cell analysis

In the field of cellular biology, single-cell analysis is the study of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics at the single cell level. Due to the heterogeneity seen in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell populations, analyzing a single cell makes it possible to discover mechanisms not seen when studying a bulk population of cells. Technologies such as fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) have increased the throughput of single cell sorting, and increased the development of single cell analysis techniques. The development of new technologies are increasing our ability to sequence the genome, and transcriptome, of single cells, as well as to quantify their proteome and metabolome. New developments in mass spectrometry techniques have become important analytical tools for proteomic and metabolomic analysis of single cells.

The first step of single-cell analysis is the isolation of single cells. There are seven methods currently used for single cell isolation: serial dilution, micromanipulation, laser capture microdissection, FACS, microfluidics, manual picking, and Raman tweezers.

Manual single cell picking is a method is where cells in a suspension are viewed under a microscope, and individually picked using a micropipette. Raman tweezers is a technique where  Raman spectroscopy is combined with optical tweezers, which uses a laser beam to trap, and manipulate cells.

The development of hydrodynamic-based microfluidic biochips has been increasing over the years. In this technique, the cells or particles are trapped in a particular region for single cell analysis (SCA) usually without any application of external force fields such as optical, electrical, magnetic or acoustic. There is a need to explore the insights of SCA in the cell's natural state and development of these techniques is highly essential for that study. Researchers have highlighted the vast potential field that needs to be explored to develop biochip devices to suit market/researcher demands. Hydrodynamic microfluidics facilitates the development of passive lab-on-chip applications. A latest review gives an account of the recent advances in this field, along with their mechanisms, methods and applications.

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