WASHINGTON: MIT scientists have developed a new technique that measures growth of many individual cells simultaneously, an advance that could lead to rapid tests for antibiotics and other drugs.
The technique offers new insights into growth variation across single cells within larger populations, and helps track the dynamic growth of cells to changing environmental conditions, researchers said.
It uses an array of suspended microchannel resonators (SMR), a type of microfluidic device that measures the mass of individual cells as they flow through tiny channels.
A novel design has increased throughput of the device by nearly two orders of magnitude, while retaining precision, said professor Scott Manalis from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.
The researchers used the device to observe the effects of antibiotics and antimicrobial peptides on bacteria, and to pinpoint growth variations of single cells among populations, which has important clinical applications.
Slower-growing bacteria, for instance, can sometimes be more resistant to antibiotics and may lead to recurrent infections, researchers said.
“The device provides new insights into how cells grow and respond to drugs,” said Manalis. (AGENCIES)
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