Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE, 8(9), p. e104109, 2014
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0104109
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Ultrastructural analysis of cells can reveal valuable information about their morphological, physiological, and biochemical characteristics. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has been widely used to provide high-resolution images from the surface of biological samples. However, samples need to be dehydrated and coated with conductive materials for SEM imaging. Besides, immobilizing non-adherent cells during processing and analysis is challenging and requires complex fixation protocols. In this work, we developed a novel dielectrophoresis based microfluidic platform for interfacing non-adherent cells with high-resolution SEM at low vacuum mode. The system enables rapid immobilization and dehydration of samples without deposition of chemical residues over the cell surface. Moreover, it enables the on-chip chemical stimulation and fixation of immobilized cells with minimum dislodgement. These advantages were demonstrated for comparing the morphological changes of non-budding and budding yeast cells following Lyticase treatment.