Humar, MatjažUpadhya, AvinashYun, Seok Hyun2020-04-061473-0197http://hdl.handle.net/1885/202747The ability to label individual cells is useful for single-cell-level studies of complex cellular interactions and heterogeneity. Optically readable cell labeling is attractive as it can be investigated non-invasively and repeatedly at high speeds. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility of large-scale cell barcoding and identification using fluorescent polystyrene microbeads loaded into cells. Intracellular beads with different diameters in a range of 5 to 12 μm generate spectrally distinguished features or barcodes. A microfluidic chip was used to measure fluorescence resonance peaks emitted from individual cells. An algorithm comparing the peak wavelengths to a reference barcode library allowed barcode identification with high accuracy. This work provides a guideline to increase the number of unique identifiers and reduce various false-positive and false-negative errors.This research was supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (R01-CA192878, P41-EB015903, P01- HL120839, DP1-OD022296), National Science Foundation (CBET-1264356, EEC-1358296, ECCS-1505569, CMMI-1562863), and MGH Research Scholar Award. M.H. was supported in part by the Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship N° 627274 within the 7th European Community Framework Programme.9 pagesapplication/pdfen-AU© The Royal Society of Chemistry 20172017-07-0710.1039/c7lc00220c2019-11-25