Multi-volume hemacytometer

Abstract

Cell counting has become an essential method for monitoring the viability and proliferation of cells. A hemacytometer is the standard device used to measure cell numbers in most laboratories which are typically automated to increase throughput. The principle of both manual and automated hemacytometers is to calculate cell numbers with a fixed volume within a set measurement range (10⁵ ~ 10⁶ cells/ml). If the cell concentration of the unknown sample is outside the range of the hemacytometer, the sample must be prepared again by increasing or decreasing the cell concentration. We have developed a new hemacytometer that has a multi-volume chamber with 4 different depths containing different volumes (0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8 µl respectively). A multi-volume hemacytometer can measure cell concentration with a maximum of 10⁶ cells/ml to a minimum of 5 × 10³ cells/ml. Compared to a typical hemacytometer with a fixed volume of 0.1 µl, the minimum measurable cell concentration of 5 × 10³ cells/ml on the multi-volume hemacytometer is twenty times lower. Additionally, the Multi-Volume Cell Counting model (cell concentration calculation with the slope value of cell number in multi-chambers) showed a wide measurement range (5 × 10³ ~ 1 × 10⁶ cells/ml) while reducing total cell counting numbers by 62.5% compared to a large volume (0.8 µl-chamber) hemacytometer.