Nat. Meth. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.4639 (2018)

Analysis of cellular mechanical properties has shed light on many fundamental biological processes, such as mitosis and T cell activation. Typically, such analysis is performed using atomic-force microscopy, a laborious and low-throughput process (tens of cells per hour) that also lacks molecular specificity. In Nature Methods, Guck and colleagues report their development of a fluidics platform that essentially combines the properties of fluorescence flow cytometry with cell-mechanical analysis. This approach allows vastly higher throughput (up to 100 cells per second) than that of atomic-force microscopy but can also provide one-dimensional fluorescent information, such as that pertaining to cell-subset identity. They validate the platform using various approaches; for example, they investigate the mechanics of progenitors of human hematopoietic stem cells gated into CD34+ or CD34– populations. In principle, this approach might eventually allow label-free sorting of cells on the basis of mechanical properties alone.