Label-free white blood cell analysis using holographic phase imaging flow cytometry

Le résumé fourni par la source

We present an innovative approach for the quantitative and label-free characterization of white blood cells (WBCs) subpopulations with an emphasis on granulocyte identification and classification. We analyzed a blood sample from a healthy donor by integrating digital holography (DH) with a microfluidic system, proposing a technique we termed holographic phase imaging flow cytometry (HPIFC). HPIFC leverages the advantages of DH to enable label-free imaging of WBCs and facilitate out-of-focus acquisition of rotating cells. Thus, HPIFC addresses the high-throughput requirements of several biological applications. Indeed, we collected different view directions of each flowing cell by exploiting its roto-translatory motion. Therefore, we obtained a suitable informative dataset from quantitative phase maps (QPMs) avoiding the conventional paradigm of augmenting data by numerically rotating images. We extracted quantitative phase features and analyzed them to allow the identification and classification of the WBC’s populations (i.e. lymphocytes, monocytes, and granulocytes). In addition, an unsupervised technique is demonstrated to further discriminate granulocyte sub-populations, such as neutrophils and eosinophils. The findings demonstrate HPIFC’s encouraging potential for liquid biopsies, for investigating WBCs, or more generally, performing label-free blood tests in the future, which could revolutionize diagnostics and improve early detection of various diseases.

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