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Chemical cytometry is a collective term for techniques that employ highly sensitive chemical analysis instrumentation and methods to quantitatively study the chemical contents of single cells.[1] In chemical cytometry, a cell to be analyzed is first lysed to solubilize its chemical contents. The molecules of interest are then separated by capillary electrophoresis (CE) or capillary chromatography and detected by laser-induced fluorescence (LIF), electrochemistry, or mass-spectrometry. CE-LIF is the most widely used combination of separation and detection in chemical cytometry as CE can separate all kinds of biomolecules,[2] and LIF can be used for detection of single molecules.[3]

The need for chemical cytometry. Tissues of our body are comprised of heterogeneous populations of cells. Such populations consist of cells that differ in their biological functions, morphology and chemistry. Heterogeneous cell populations are generated during many fundamental biological processes. Among them are physiological processes such as embryogenesis and tissue regeneration, and pathological processes such as tumorigenesis and neurodegeneration. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms of them we need to study the chemical differences between individual cells within heterogeneous cell populations formed during these processes. The complexity of those molecular mechanisms requires the multi-component chemical analysis of single cells. Classical biochemistry and cytometry techniques are not applicable to multi-component chemical analysis of single cells. Indeed, classical biochemistry techniques require large biochemical homogenates prepared from millions of cells while classical cytometry (image cytometry and flow cytometry) permit the simultaneous assay of only a limited number of chemical species, determined by the number of spectral channels available (rarely more than three). Chemical cytometry techniques can facilitate multi-component chemical analysis of single cells and, thus, can contribute to understanding molecular mechanisms of processes that lead to the generation of heterogeneous cell populations.