Cellular mechanical properties and liquid viscosity are critical biophysical indicators for assessing physiological status and diagnosing diseases. For the characterization of cellular mechanics, microfluidics-based high-throughput cell deformation assays have garnered significant attention owing to their high throughput and minimal cell damage. However, such techniques typically require cells to be suspended in a medium with known viscosity, which precludes the measurement of the native sample’s own viscosity—a particular limitation for precious clinical specimens. Here, we present a microfluidic chip based on virtual fluidic channels that employs a “split-sample, dual-assay” strategy, enabling the simultaneous acquisition of two key biophysical parameters (liquid viscosity and cellular mechanical properties) from a single sample source with minimal volume consumption.
Du et al. (Sun,) studied this question.