Imaging flow cytometry with a real-time throughput beyond 1,000,000 events per second

Jiehua Zhou; Liye Mei; Mingjie Yu; Xiao Ma; Dan Hou; Zhuo Yin; Xun Liu; Yan Ding; Kaining Yang; Ruidong Xiao; Xiandan Yuan; Yueyun Weng; Mengping Long; Taobo Hu; Jinxuan Hou; Yu Xu; Liang Tao; Sisi Mei; Hui Shen; Yaxiaer Yalikun; Fuling Zhou; Liang Wang; Du Wang; Sheng Liu; Cheng Lei

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-01754-9

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Imaging flow cytometry with a real-time throughput beyond 1,000,000 events per second

Original Articles

- Imaging flow cytometry with a real-time throughput beyond 1,000,000 events per second
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 4, Pages: 931-947(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.The Institute of Technological Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
  2.School of Computer Science, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan 430068, China
  3.Division of Materials Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Takayama-cho 8916-5, Japan
  4.School of Science, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan 430068, China
  5.Department of Pathology, Peking University Cancer Hospital, Beijing 100142, China
  6.Department of Breast Surgery, Peking University People’s Hospital, Beijing 100044, China
  7.Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071, China
  8.Department of Radiation and Medical Oncology, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071, China
  9.People’s Hospital of Anshun City Guizhou Province, Anshun 561000, China
  10.Department of Hematology, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071, China
  11.National Engineering Laboratory for Next Generation Internet Access System, School of Optics and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
  12.Suzhou Institute of Wuhan University, Suzhou 215000, China
  13.Shenzhen Institute of Wuhan University, Shenzhen 518057, China
- Author bio：
  
  Liang Wang (hustwl@hust.edu.cn)
  Du Wang (wangdu@whu.edu.cn)
  Cheng Lei (leicheng@whu.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-01754-9
  CLC：
- Received：29 July 2024，
  
  Revised：09 December 2024，
  
  Accepted：2025-01-08，
  
  Published Online：10 February 2025，
  
  Published：30 April 2025
- Accepted：
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Zhou, J. H. et al. Imaging flow cytometry with a real-time throughput beyond 1,000,000 events per second. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 931-947 (2025).
DOI：

Zhou, J. H. et al. Imaging flow cytometry with a real-time throughput beyond 1,000,000 events per second. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 931-947 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01754-9.

摘要

Abstract

Imaging flow cytometry (IFC) combines the imaging capabilities of microscopy with the high throughput of flow cytometry

offering a promising solution for high-precision and high-throughput cell analysis in fields such as biomedicine

green energy

and environmental monitoring. However

due to limitations in imaging framerate and real-time data processing

the real-time throughput of existing IFC systems has been restricted to approximately 1000-10

000 events per second (eps)

which is insufficient for large-scale cell analysis. In this work

we demonstrate IFC with real-time throughput exceeding 1

000

000 eps by integrating optical time-stretch (OTS) imaging

microfluidic-based cell manipulation

and online image processing. Cells flowing at speeds up to 15m/s are clearly imaged with a spatial resolution of 780nm

and images of each individual cell are captured

stored

and analyzed. The capabilities and performance of our system are validated through the identification of malignancies in clinical colorectal samples. This work sets a new record for throughput in imaging flow cytometry

and we believe it has the potential to revolutionize cell analysis by enabling highly efficient

accurate

and intelligent measurement.

关键词

Keywords

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