KCS

A technique called mass cytometry allows 40 cells to be separated simultaneously at a time, which requires each cell to have a lanthanide marker. Since labelled cells are nebulized and flow to argon plasma, which ionizes the metal-labelled antibodies. Then the metal signals are analyzed by a TOF (time-of-flight) mass spectrometer. For cell counting, internal standards are necessary. The particles should be suitable for mass cytometry calibration as internal standards. To perform these roles, metal-labelled microspheres were required to have monodispersity, functionality and metal content criteria. The material of the bead particle is selected as polystyrene, which can be applied in many ways, and is easily synthesized, stable, and can be made into various forms as well as applying various functional group to the surface, making it suitable for cytometry's standardization bead. In this study, polystyrene based smaller particles with quantified concentration has been studied for further application in bioanalysis. Polystyrene particle containing lanthanide metal such as Eu is fabricated by nanoprecipitation polymerization for making more monodisperse particles. The size and the morphology of the synthesized beads have been characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and Eu content of each particle has been determined by single-particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (spICP-MS).