Measuring the binding strength between T cells and their targets could speed up the validation of new cancer immunotherapies and reduce the need for animal testing. This is the promise of a new technology, based on the physics of acoustic forces.

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In the context of European Natural Killer cell immunotherapy research, a collaboration between LUMICKS and Glycostem aims to improve the screening of the most effective NK cells for clinical applications, by measuring cellular avidity.

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Assessing the strength and kinetics of molecular interactions of cells with the extracellular matrix is fundamental to understand cell adhesion processes. Given the relevance of these processes, there is a strong need for physical methods to quantitatively assess the mechanism of cell adhesion at the single-cell level, allowing discrimination of cells with different behaviors. Here we introduce single-cell acoustic force spectroscopy (scAFS), an approach that makes use of acoustic waves to exert controlled forces, up to 1 nN, to hundreds of individual cells in parallel. We demonstrate the potential of scAFS by measuring adhesion forces and kinetics of CD4⁺ T lymphocytes (CD4) to fibronectin. We determined that CD4 adhesion is accelerated by interleukin-7, their main regulatory cytokine, whereas CD4 binding strength remains the same. Activation of these cells likely increases their chance to bind to the vessel wall in the blood flow to infiltrate inflamed tissues and locally coordinate the immune response.

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Matthias Leisegang is Juniorprofessor and group leader at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and has received the Curt Meyer Memorial Prize for his research work into analyzing cancer mutations as targets in adoptive T cell therapy.

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