Real-time viscoelastic deformability cytometry: High-throughput mechanical phenotyping of liquid and solid biopsies

In principle, the measurement of mechanical property differences between cancer cells and their benign counterparts enables the detection, diagnosis, and classification of diseases. Despite the existence of various mechanophenotyping methods, the ability to perform high-throughput single-cell deformability measurements on liquid and/or solid tissue biopsies remains an unmet challenge within clinical settings. To address this issue, we present an ultrahigh-throughput viscoelastic microfluidic platform able to measure the mechanical properties of single cells at rates of up to 100,000 cells per second (and up to 10,000 cells per second in real time). To showcase the utility of the presented platform in clinical scenarios, we perform single-cell phenotyping of both liquid and solid tumor biopsies, cytoskeletal drug analysis, and identification of malignant lymphocytes in peripheral blood samples. Our viscoelastic microfluidic methodology offers opportunities for high-throughput, label-free single-cell analysis, with diverse applications in clinical diagnostics and personalized medicine.