Abstract
It is a major challenge to detect and isolate individual targeted cells without background contamination among a large number of cells for single-cell-level diagnosis and analysis. In this study, we present a single-cell-pick-up scheme to isolate pure single cells on our self-assembled-cells-array (SACA) chips for rare cell screening and single cell analysis. After half million cells self-assembled on the SACA chip [1, 2] to form a monolayer, a gelation process to include gelatin into the cell buffer solution for viscosity control was conducted, and single-cells pickup process can be accomplished by a micro-pipette following the automatic image/registration process in the automatic cell scanner. The background buffer volume can be reduced from 100 μl down to 30 nl, and single cell pickup successful rate can be increased from 20% up to 86%, when compared to standard PBS buffer.