Cell deformability plays an important role in cellular processes and functions, including cell growth and differentiation, as well as cell transfer and cell cycle. Measuring deformability at the single-cell level has attracted great interest in biomedicine owing to its importance in various applications, such as cell separation, disease diagnosis, and drug screening. Therefore, an accurate, robust, and high-throughput method for measuring single-cell deformability is urgently required. Microfluidics has become a promising tool for single-cell analysis because it greatly reduces operational complexity and reagent consumption, while enabling the integration of multiple functions. In this review, we discuss recent advances in microfluidic technologies for single-cell deformability analysis. Based on the different methods of stress generation, microfluidic technologies can be divided into extrusion, hydrodynamic, electric stretching, optical stretching, and acoustic stretching deformability cytometry. Herein, we discuss the application scenarios, advantages, and disadvantages of these microfluidic-based approaches. In addition, future research directions are also discussed, such as how to improve the detection performance, integrate various detection technologies, and increase their application capability in the medical field.

细胞变形性在细胞过程和功能中起着重要作用，包括细胞生长和分化，以及细胞转移和细胞周期。由于在细胞分离、疾病诊断和药物筛选等各种应用中的重要性，在单细胞水平测量可变形性引起了生物医学的极大兴趣。因此，迫切需要一种准确、稳健、高通量的单细胞变形测量方法。微流体已成为单细胞分析的有前途的工具，因为它大大降低了操作复杂性和试剂消耗，同时实现了多种功能的集成。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了用于单细胞变形分析的微流体技术的最新进展。基于不同的应力产生方法，微流控技术可分为挤压、流体力学、电拉伸、光拉伸和声拉伸变形细胞仪。在这里，我们讨论了这些基于微流体的方法的应用场景、优点和缺点。此外，还讨论了未来的研究方向，如如何提高检测性能，整合各种检测技术，提高其在医疗领域的应用能力。