Fast controllable laser lysis of cells for analysis

摘要

Fast lysis of a single cell or cellular component thereof is performed by generating a shock wave in a medium in which the cell or cellular component thereof is positioned. The cell 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 or cellular component thereof in a controllable manner in milliseconds or less followed immediately by the loading of the cellular contents into a capillary for analyte separation and detection. The cell or cellular component thereof is adjacent the inlet of an electrophoretic column through which a gravity siphon flow of the medium is maintained. The lysed contents of the cell or cellular component thereof enter the electrophoretic column in less than 33 msec, are separated and analyzed by laser induced fluorescence. The method takes advantage of the shock wave produced by a highly focused laser pulse which is created in a medium adjacent to the cell or cellular component thereof. In the illustrated embodiment the laser pulse is focused in the glass substrate at or near a glass-to-buffer interface of a cell chamber in which the cell or cellular component thereof to be lysed has been cultured.