High Precision Optical One-to-One Cell Fusion

描述（由申请人提供）：在过去的十年中，细胞融合已经成为分析杂交瘤抗体产生、癌症免疫治疗、基因转染、染色体定位、克隆哺乳动物和干细胞研究的有力工具。到目前为止，细胞融合技术都是基于化学和物理方法。然而，使用这些技术，某些类型的刺激造成的整个细胞损伤是不可避免的，由于集体治疗，特定目的所需的特定细胞的融合是不可能的。因此，Maxwell Sensors Inc.提出开发一种新型的光学细胞融合（OC-Fusion）芯片和系统，该芯片和系统结合了微滴和光融合技术，以非常高的精度快速生成数百或数千个混合细胞。皮液滴方法-快速和准确地配对细胞相互接触在一个微小的液滴。激光在细胞接触处精确地融合一个点。OC-Fusion的优点是：1。一种多功能液滴技术快速配对1:1选择细胞接触在一个微滴内；这个过程不依赖于任何自然的细胞接触，特定的细胞受体，或劳动密集型的光学捕获。2. 使用图像辅助激光系统扫描液滴阵列，可以生成数百或数千个混合细胞，并在点接触（< 3<m）处使用紫外微束精确融合两个细胞。为了实现拟议项目的目标，第一阶段的具体目标是设计和开发OC-Fusion芯片和系统，表征系统性能，制定方案，执行和验证细胞-细胞电融合，以融合(1)培养的中国仓鼠卵巢（CHO-k1）细胞，(2)脾细胞和骨髓瘤。公共卫生相关性：麦克斯韦传感器公司提议开发一种紧凑的单细胞融合芯片和系统，能够为各种生物技术和生物医学应用产生数百或数千个融合细胞。光融合，即利用激光脉冲融合两个或多个活细胞的过程，是一项具有广泛应用的新兴技术。该技术是癌症免疫治疗、单克隆抗体生成和干细胞研究中不可或缺的一部分，它使研究人员更深入地了解基因如何指导蛋白质合成。这项技术还允许研究人员制造大量不同的疾病特异性抗体，并帮助科学家克隆哺乳动物。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In the past decade, cell fusion has become a powerful tool for the analysis of hybridoma antibody production, cancer immunotherapy, gene transfection, chromosomal mapping, cloning mammals, and stem cell research. Until now, cell fusion techniques have been based on chemical and physical methods. Using these techniques, however, whole cell damage caused by some types of stimulation was unavoidable and a fusion of specific cells that are required for particular purposes was not possible because of the collective treatment. Therefore, Maxwell Sensors Inc. proposes to develop a novel Optical Cell Fusion (OC-Fusion) chip and system that combines the technologies of picodroplet and optical fusion to rapidly generate hundreds or thousands of hybrid cells with very high precision. The picodroplet method - rapidly and accurately pairs cells in contact with each other in a tiny droplet. A laser - precisely fuses a point at cell contact. The advantages of OC-Fusion are: 1. a versatile droplet technique rapidly pairs 1:1 selected cells in contact inside a picodroplet; the process does not depend on any natural cell contact, specific cell receptors, or labor-intensive optical trapping. 2. hundreds or thousands of hybrid cells can be generated with an image-assisted laser system used to scan the droplet array and precisely fuse the two cells at point contact (< 3<m) with a UV microbeam. In order to achieve the goal of the proposed project, the Phase I specific aims are to design and develop the OC-Fusion chip and system, characterize the system performance, develop protocol, perform and validate cell-cell electrofusion to fuse (1) cultured Chinese hamster ovary (CHO-k1) cells, and (2) splenocyte and myeloma. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Maxwell Sensors Inc. proposes to develop a compact single-cell fusing chip and system that enables to generate hundreds or thousands of fused cells for a variety of biotechnology and biomedical applications. Optical fusion, the process of using laser pulses to fuse two or more living cells, is a growing technology with a wide variety of applications. The technique is integral to cancer immunotherapy, monoclonal antibody generation and stem cell research where it affords researchers greater insight into how genes guide protein synthesis. The technique also allows researchers to create large quantities of different disease-specific antibodies and helps scientists clone mammals.