Selective Isolation of Adherent Single Cells

The isolation of single cells is an essential pre-requisite for many research projects in pathology, oncology or forensics.

The MMI CellEctor has been shown to be a suitable tool to selectively isolate single cells in solution. However, it has been difficult to aspirate living adherent cells since the adhesive forces prevent detachment and uptake of the cells.

Living adherent cells can typically be detached by trypsinization, but the cells’ RNA and protein expression profile will be altered by this treatment, leading to biased transcriptomics or proteomics data.
The aim of this work was therefore to establish optimal conditions for the isolation of single adherent cells, avoiding trypsinization but at the same time ensuring that the isolated cells are viable for further cultivation and downstream analysis.