143 / 155
Single-Cell Biophysics: Measurement, Modulation, and Modeling
Poster Abstracts
138
80-POS
Board 40
Heterogeneous Response of Lymphocytic Cells to Mitomycin-C Revealed by Microfluidic
Single-Cell Time-Lapse Microscopy
Akihisa Seita
1
, Yuichi Wakamoto
1,2
.
1
University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan,
2
University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo,
Japan.
Over the past years, single-cell analysis has revealed that cellular phenotypes are heterogeneous
even for genetically identical cells. It has been also shown that at least some types of phenotypic
heterogeneity contribute to adaptation of cellular population without apparent genetic mutations
from bacterial cells to cancer cells. However, understanding which single-cell phenotypic states
are related to growth and death of individual cells is generally difficult due to time-course
fluctuation of cellular phenotypes and transitions of environmental conditions caused by the
proliferation of cells. Microfluidic single-cell time-lapse microscopy is a promising technique to
achieve the reliable measurements on time-course fluctuations of cellular phenotype and tight
control of environmental conditions, yet such methods have been still limited to the
measurements for bacterial cells.
Here, we have created a microfluidics device for mammalian cells based on the “Mother
machine” scheme, that have allowed the long-term tracking of single bacterial cells in controlled
environments. With this device, we observed the response of single lymphocytic cells (L1210) to
Mitomycin-C for five days prior to drug treatment and six days under the continuous exposure to
the drug. The result showed that the cell lineages that divided more frequently before the drug
exposure had lower chances of survival after the exposure, which indicates that pre-exposure
growth states are correlated with the survival fates of individual cell lineages against Mitomycin-
C. In addition, pre-exposure interdivision times were positively correlated between the
neighboring generations (~0.6), suggesting some epigenetic factors affecting the growth
characteristics of cell lineages.