Single cell analysis has become a crucial goal since cellular heterogeneity was acknowledged as one of the greatestchallenges in cancer therapeutics. Radioactive probes can play an important role in single cell study thanks to its uniquecapability of tracking small molecules with minimal modification of their chemical structure. Our lab has recentlydeveloped a new technique known as radioluminescence microscopy (RLM) to measure the amount of radiotracer insingle cells. Yet, RLM can image only up to about 100 cells and lacks capability of integrating with subsequent sampleprocessing such as cell sorting. Here we introduce a robust, high throughput single cell radiometry based onradiofluorogenesis and droplet optofluidics. As an example, we quantitated [~(18)F]-fluorodeoxyglucose radiotracer uptakein single human breast cancer cells and assessed cellular heterogeneity in single cell metabolism.
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