Real-time immune monitoring of immunocompromised patients via lens-free shadow image analysis of natural killer cells

초록

Real-time monitoring of natural killer (NK) cell function is crucial for assessing immunocompetence, particularly in immunocompromised patients. Conventional cytometric and cytotoxicity assays are labor-intensive, slow, and often incompatible with continuous or point-of-care applications. This study introduces Cellytics NK, a lens-free shadow imaging technology (LSIT)-based platform that utilizes in-line digital holography to enable the rapid, label-free, high-throughput assessment of NK cell activity. By extracting quantitative shadow parameters, peakto-peak distance (PPD), width of secondary maxima standard deviation (WSM-SD), and a combined shadow metric (CSP), Cellytics NK reliably differentiated between healthy and immunocompromised individuals within 5 min. We also introduced an innate immunity index (I-3) that quantifies the responsiveness of NK cells to a novel activation stimulator cocktail. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed excellent discriminatory power (area under the curve > 0.95 for PPD and CSP), and longitudinal monitoring showed that CSP and I-3 correlated with clinical outcomes. These results emphasize the utility of LSIT for objective and dynamic immune profiling. This platform holds significant potential for noninvasive immune monitoring, risk stratification, and therapy monitoring in immunocompromised populations.

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