Microchip-Based Enumeration of Human White Blood Cells

The advent of flow cytometry has considerably changed the ways in which medical testing is conducted. However, the cost of flow cytometers, their large size, and their maintenance needs make them scarce in resource-poor settings and available almost only in clinical pathology laboratories in developed countries. Because cell enumeration is a basic and crucial support of diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, an alternative cell-counting method that would potentially be cost-effective, portable, and suitable for use in resource-poor settings is warranted. We describe here a protocol for conducting cell-counting experiments in a simple microfluidic structure. This protocol describes how to build a simple microfluidic cell and perform a total white blood cell (WBC) count through capture and immunolabeling of the WBCs with an anti-CD45 antibody.