FAST CONTROLLABLE LASER LYSIS OF CELLS FOR ANALYSIS

摘要

Fast lysis of a single cell (46) or cellular component thereof is performed by generating a shock wave in a medium in which the cell (46) or cellular component thereof is positioned. The cell (46) or cellular component thereof is either positioned by laser tweezers or cultured as an adhered cell or cellular component thereof to minimize manipulation trauma. The disclosed method completely lyses a single cell (46) or cellular component thereof in a controllable manner in milliseconds or less followed immediately by the loading of the cellular contents into a capillary (22) for analyte separation and detection. The cell (46) or cellular component thereof is adjacent the inlet of an electrophoretic column (22) through which a gravity siphon flow of the medium is maintained. The lysed contents of the cell (46) or cellular component thereof enter the electrophoretic column (22) in less than 33 msec, and are separated and analyzed by a fluorescence detector (42). The method takes advantage of the shock wave produced by a highly focused laser pulse from a Nd:YAG laser (18) which is created in a medium adjacent to the cell (46) or cellular component thereof. In the illustrated embodiment, the laser pulse is focused in the slide (28) at or near a glass-to-buffer interface of a cell chamber in which the cell (46) or cellular component thereof to be lysed has been cultured.