New approaches to single-cell analysis by capillary electrophoresis

The contents of individual cells can be readily separated by capillary electrophoresis (CE) and detected with a variety of methods. This article emphasizes two emerging trends of single-cell measurements by CE: (1) refinement in instrumentation to perform more efficient analyses of individual cells and ( 2) detection of different classes of analytes contained in single cells. Increased interest in measuring chemistry on a cell by cell basis drives the development of instrumentation capabilities in the areas of sample handling and manipulation, automation, and detection for the improvement of fractionating and identifying intracellular contents. Detection of different classes of intracellular analytes (compared to those studied in the earlier work) has resulted from enhanced detector technology, improved knowledge of derivatization chemistry, and new perceptions about the measured amounts and corresponding meaning of relevant biological analytes. This article focuses on instrumentation for automated single-cell analysis and continuous cell injection. The coupling of mass spectrometry to CE for the detection and identification of analytes from individual cells is also discussed. Finally, novel methods for the detection of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate, RNA, and progesterone from single cells are described. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.