A High-Sensitivity Lanthanide Nanoparticle Reporter for Mass Cytometry: Tests on Microgels as a Proxy for Cells

This paper addresses the question of whether one can use lanthanide nanoparticles (e.g., NaHoF4) to detect surface biomarkers expressed at low levels by mass cytometry. To avoid many of the complications of experiments on live or fixed cells, we carried out proof-of-concept experiments using aqueous microgels with a diameter on the order of 700 nm as a proxy for cells. These microgels were used to test whether nanoparticle (NP) reagents would allow the detection of as few as 100 proteins per “cell” in cell-by-cell assays. Streptavidin (SAv), which served as the model biomarker, was attached to the microgel in two different ways. Covalent coupling to surface carboxyls of the microgel led to large numbers (>104) of proteins per microgel, whereas biotinylation of the microgel followed by exposure to SAv led to much smaller numbers of SAv per microgel. Using mass cytometry, we compared two biotin-containing reagents, which recognized and bound to the SAvs on the microgel. One was a metal chelating polymer (MC...