Applications of Mass Cytometry in Clinical Medicine: The Promise and Perils of Clinical CyTOF

Abstract

Mass cytometry is a novel technology similar to flow cytometry in which antibodies are tagged with heavy metal molecules rather than fluorophores and then detected with time-of-flight mass spectrometry. This enables measurement of up to 50 simultaneous parameters with no autofluorescent background and little or no spillover or required compensation. Mass cytometry has tremendous potential for the analysis of highly complex clinical samples for the diagnosis and monitoring of malignant and autoimmune disorders. The technology also presents several unique challenges for clinical use and will require new approaches to analyze the large amounts of data generated.

Keywords: Aberrant marker expression; Acute leukemia; CyTOF; Flow cytometry; Mass cytometry; Minimal residual disease.