Application of on-chip electrophoresis of cell to evaluation of cell cycle stages of HL-60 cells

In this article, we report a new method of cell cycle stage typing using a microcapillary electrophoresis (mu CE) chip. Cell electrophoretic mobility (EPM) is considered to be useful information for noninvasive cell state analysis because EPM reflects the surface properties of cells. Human leukemic cells (HL-60) were synchronized at certain phases of the cell cycle using various synchronizing drugs, and their EPMs were measured using a mu CE chip. It was found that the EPM distribution of the synchronized cells is much narrower than that of the nonsynchronized cells, and that the peak value of the EPM distribution differs between all cell cycle stages. These results suggest that on-chip EPM measurement is a promising method of cell cycle stage typing.