The sensitivity and speed with which the immune system reacts to host disruption is unrivaled by any detection method for pathogenic biomarkers or infectious signatures. Engagement of cellular immunity in response to infections or cancer is contingent upon activation and subsequent cytotoxic activity by T cells. Thus, monitoring T cell activation can reliably serve as a metric for disease diagnosis as well as therapeutic prognosis. Rapid and direct quantification of T cell activation states, however, has been hindered by challenges associated with antigen target identification, labeling requirements, and assay duration. Here we present an electronic, label-free method for simultaneous separation and evaluation of T cell activation states. Our device utilizes a microfluidic design integrated with nanolayered electrode structures for dielectrophoresis (DEP)-driven discrimination of activated vs naïve T cells at single-cell resolution and demonstrates rapid (<2 min) separation of T cells at high single-pass efficiency as quantified by an on-chip Coulter counter module. Our device represents a microfluidic tool for electronic assessment of immune activation states and, hence, a portable diagnostic for quantitative evaluation of immunity and disease state. Further, its ability to achieve label-free enrichment of activated immune cells promises clinical utility in cell-based immunotherapies.

中文翻译：

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通过激活状态连续无标记地区分T细胞。

免疫系统对宿主破坏的敏感性和速度是任何病原生物标志物或传染性特征检测方法所无法比拟的。响应感染或癌症而参与细胞免疫的过程取决于T细胞的活化和随后的细胞毒活性。因此，监测T细胞活化可以可靠地用作疾病诊断和治疗预后的度量。然而，与抗原靶标鉴定，标记要求和测定时间有关的挑战阻碍了T细胞活化状态的快速和直接定量。在这里，我们提出了一种电子，无标签的方法，用于同时分离和评估T细胞活化状态。与原始T细胞在单细胞分辨率下的对比，并证明了以高单次通过效率快速（<2分钟）分离T细胞，这由片上Coulter计数器模块量化。我们的设备代表了一种用于电子评估免疫激活状态的微流体工具，因此是一种用于定量评估免疫力和疾病状态的便携式诊断工具。此外，其实现活化免疫细胞的无标记富集的能力有望在基于细胞的免疫治疗中得到临床应用。