摘要
The mechanical behavior of individual cells plays an important role in regulating various biological activities at the molecular and cellular levels.It can serve as a promising label-free marker of cells’physiological states.In the past two decades,several techniques have been developed for understanding correlations between cellular mechanical changes and human diseases.However,numerous technical challenges remain with regard to realizing high-throughput,robust,and easy-to-perform measurements of single-cell mechanical properties.In this paper,we review the emerging tools for single-cell mechanical characterization that are provided by microfluidic technology.Different techniques are benchmarked by considering their advantages and limitations.Finally,the potential applications of microfluidic techniques based on cellular mechanical properties are discussed.
基金
This work is partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos.1710831 and 2045169.