Although conventional state-of-the-art flow cytometry systems provide rapid and reliable analytical capacities, they are bulky, expensive and complex. To overcome these drawbacks modern flow cytometers have been developed with enhanced portability for on-site measurements. Unlike external fluorescent/optical detectors, magnetoresistive sensors are micro-fabricated, can be integrated within microfluidic channels, and can detect magnetically labelled cells. This work describes the real-time detection of single magnetically labelled cells with a magnetoresistive based cell cytometer. For Kg1-a cells magnetically labelled with 50 nm CD34 microbeads (Milteny) flowing through a 150 μm wide, 14 μm high microchannel, with speeds around 1 cm s(-1), bipolar signals with an average amplitude of 10-20 μV were observed corresponding to cell events. The number of cells counted by the spin valve cytometer has been compared with that obtained with a hemocytometer. Both methods agree within the respective error bars.
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2011