Profiling lymphocyte interactions at the single-cell level by microfluidic cell pairing

Establishing a successful immune response requires cell–cell interactions, where the nature of antigen presentation dictates functional outcomes. Methods to study these interactions, however, suffer from limited throughput and a lack of control over cell pairing. Here we describe a microfluidic platform that achieves high-throughput deterministic pairing of lymphocytes with a defined contact time, thereby allowing accurate assessment of early activation events for each pair in controlled microenvironments. More importantly, the platform allows the capture of dynamic processes and static parameters from both partners simultaneously, thus enabling pairwise-correlated multiparametric profiling of lymphocyte interactions over hundreds of pairs in a single experiment. Using our platform, we characterized early activation dynamics of CD8 T cells (OT-1 and TRP1 transnuclear (TN)) and investigated the extent of heterogeneity in T-cell activation and the correlation of multiple readouts. The results establish our platform as a promising tool for quantitative investigation of lymphocyte interactions. Direct cell–cell interactions form the basis of the adaptive immune response. Here, Dura et al.present an advanced microfluidic platform that enables highly parallel pairing of primary immune cells and multiparametric and dynamic measurements of lymphocyte interactions and activation processes.