Capillary Electrophoresis Coupled With Chemiluminescence/Bioluminescence Detection For Single Cell Analysis

The analytical chemistry for single-cell analysis is coming into being and it has become a hot issue in the foreland of analytical chemistry. Single-cell analysis advances our knowledge of micro-bioenviroment to a deeper and clearer extent. Comparing to general routine cell-analysis, single-cell analysis pays attention to the differentiation of individual cells and it can reveal the impotant bio-information covered by a mean result. This characteristic of single-cell analysis is very helpful not only for the early diagnosis and prevention against some diseases and also for clarifying various biological processes at the single cell level. As for the methods for single-cell analysis, high performance liquid chromatogram (HPLC) and open-tubular liquid chromatography (OTLC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) have been successfully applied to determine various components in single cell quantitatively. Of these techniques, CE is considered to be well-suited to the study of single cells due to its unique characteristics, such as, high separation resolution, small required sample and reagent volumes, and easy operation. Up to now, of all the CE detection methods, laser induced fluorescence detection (LIF) and electrochemical detection (ED) coupled with CE have been predominantly applied for single-cell analysis. Although the two methods are ultrasensitive, the instruments of both methods are complicated and because most of biomolecules nearly have no native fluorescence or no electrochemical activity, derivatization is often needed. Derivatization at low concentrations is unfavorable because of kinetics. Even if derivatization is possible, to obtain quantitative information is difficult because complete reaction cannot be guaranteed. Combining the high...