Microfluidic live tracking and transcriptomics of cancer-immune cell doublets link intercellular proximity and gene regulation

• DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-04205-y
• Publication Date: 2022-11-12T05:15:40Z
• Authors: Bianca C. T. Flores; Smriti Chawla; Ning Ma; Chad Sanada; Praveen Kumar Kujur; Rudy Yeung; Margot B. Bellon; Kyle Hukari; Brian Fowler; Mark Lynch; Ludmilla T. D. Ch...; Naveen Ramalingam; Debarka Sengupta; Stefanie S. Jeffrey
• Keywords: Cell type; Live cell imaging

Abstract Cell–cell communication and physical interactions play a vital role in cancer initiation, homeostasis, progression, immune response. Here, we report system that combines live capture of different cell types, co-incubation, time-lapse imaging, gene expression profiling doublets using microfluidic integrated fluidic circuit enables measurement distances between cells the associated transcriptional profiles due to cell–cell interactions. We track temporal variations natural killer—triple-negative breast compare them with terminal cellular transcriptome profiles. The results show time-bound activities regulatory modules allude existence memory. Our experimental bioinformatic approaches serve as proof concept for interrogating live-cell at doublet resolution. Together, our findings highlight use approach across cancers types.