Quantification of amyloid-β secretion in isolated optofluidic chamber array

Amyloid-β (A β) secretion plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and intercellular neuronal communication is potentially an important factor influencing A β secretion levels. However, there is no existing system that can isolate a specific number of neuronal cells, encapsulate their A β secretions, and measure the dynamics of A β secretion directly to investigate how the number and density of cells affects the secretion activity. We have designed an optofluidic system to isolate one or more neuronal cells in nanoliter-volume culture chambers, where A β secretions are confined and detected. Since surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based detection is ideal for real-time and label-free A β quantification, 2D nanocrescent SERS array is integrated on the bottom floor of the cell culture chambers for A β secretion detection. This system enables, for the first time, the systematic characterization of A β secretion for different cell population densities.