Morphological Effects of Natural Products on Schizosaccharomyces pombe Measured by Imaging Flow Cytometry

Gaining a full understanding of the mechanisms of action of natural products as therapeutic agents includes observing the effects of natural products on cellular morphology,because abnormal cellular morphology is an important aspect of cellular transformations that occur as part of disease states.In this study a set of natural products was examined in search of small molecules that influence the cylindrical morphology of fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe.Imaging flow cytometry of large populations of S.pombe exposed to natural products captured cell images and revealed changes in mean length and aspect ratio of cells.Several natural products were found to alter S.pombe’s morphology relative to control,in terms of elongating cells,shrinking them,or making them more round.These results may facilitate future investigations into methods by which cells establish and maintain specific shapes.

Demands and technical developments of clinical flow cytometry with emphasis in quantitative,spectral,and imaging capabilities

As the gold-standard method for single-cell analysis,flow cytometry enables high-throughput and multiple-parameter characterization of individual biological cells.This review highlights the demands for clinical flow cytometry in laboratory hematology(e.g.,diagnoses of minimal residual disease and various types of leukemia),summarizes state-of-the-art clinical flow cytometers(e.g.,FACSLyricTMby Becton Dickinson,DxFLEX by Beckman Coulter),then considers innovative technical improvements in flow cytometry(including quantitative,spectral,and imaging approaches)to address the limitations of clinical flow cytometry in hematology diagnosis.Finally,driven by these clinical demands,future developments in clinical flow cytometry are suggested.

Principles and applications of high-speed single-pixel imaging technology

Single-pixel imaging （SPI） technology has garnered great interest within the last decade because of its ability to record high-resolution images using a single-pixel detector. It has been applied to diverse fields, such as magnetic resonance imaging （MRI）, aerospace remote sensing, terahertz photography, and hyperspectral imaging. Compared with conventional silicon-based cameras, single-pixel cameras （SPCs） can achieve image compression and operate over a much broader spectral range. However, the imaging speed of SPCs is governed by the response time of digital mieromirror devices （DMDs） and the amount of com- pression of acquired images, leading to low （ms-level） temporal resolution. Consequently, it is particularly challenging for SPCs to investigate fast dynamic phenomena, which is required commonly in microscopy. Recently, a unique approach based on photonic time stretch （PTS） to achieve high-speed SPI has been reported. It achieves a frame rate far beyond that can be reached with conventional SPCs. In this paper, we first introduce the principles and applications of the PTS technique. Then the basic archi- tecture of the high-speed SPI system is presented, and an imaging flow cytometer with high speed and high throughput is demonstrated experimentally. Finally, the limitations and potential applications of high-speed SPI are discussed.