TY - JOUR A1 - Kage, Daniel A1 - Hoffmann, Katrin A1 - Borcherding, H. A1 - Schedler, U. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute T1 - Lifetime encoding in flow cytometry for bead‑based sensing of biomolecular interaction T2 - Scientific reports N2 - To demonstrate the potential of time-resolved flow cytometry (FCM) for bioanalysis, clinical diagnostics, and optically encoded bead-based assays, we performed a proof-of-principle study to detect biomolecular interactions utilizing fluorescence lifetime (LT)-encoded micron-sized polymer beads bearing target-specific bioligands and a recently developed prototype lifetime flow cytometer (LT-FCM setup). This instrument is equipped with a single excitation light source and different fluorescence detectors, one operated in the photon-counting mode for time-resolved measurements of fluorescence decays and three detectors for conventional intensity measurements in different spectral windows. First, discrimination of bead-bound biomolecules was demonstrated in the time domain exemplarily for two targets, Streptavidin (SAv) and the tumor marker human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). In a second step, the determination of biomolecule concentration levels was addressed representatively for the inflammation-related biomarker tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) utilizing fluorescence intensity measurements in a second channel of the LT-FCM instrument. Our results underline the applicability of LT-FCM in the time domain for measurements of biomolecular interactions in suspension assays. In the future, the combination of spectral and LT encoding and multiplexing and the expansion of the time scale from the lower nanosecond range to the longer nanosecond and the microsecond region is expected to provide many distinguishable codes. This enables an increasing degree of multiplexing which could be attractive for high throughput screening applications. PB - Nature KW - Fluorescence KW - Sensor KW - Assay KW - Protein KW - Multiplexing KW - Flow cytometry KW - Barcoding KW - Lifetime KW - Dye KW - Bead KW - Bead-based assay KW - Method KW - Quantification PY - 2020 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/51600 AN - OPUS4-51600 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-516007 VL - 10 IS - 1 SP - 19477 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany