Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and SciLifeLab have developed a new method to analyze the condition of immune cells in the blood. The method has been tested on patients with atherosclerosis and can distinguish their immune cells from those of healthy individuals. The study is published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
The physical properties of immune cells, such as how the cell membrane is structured or how the mitochondria function, affect how the cells move, communicate and respond to inflammation. These properties have previously been difficult to measure on a large scale.
Now, researchers have developed a method that measures multiple physical properties simultaneously in individual cells across very large cell populations. The method is called spectral biophysical cytometry (SBC) and combines fluorescent nanosensors, which respond to the cells' physical environment, with advanced flow cytometry, in which thousands of cells are analyzed one by one using laser light in a few minutes.
The researchers used the method to analyze immune cells in blood from 38 patients with atherosclerosis and 26 healthy control individuals.
"We show that immune cells in atherosclerosis have altered physical properties that can be measured directly in blood samples, without first needing to analyze genes or proteins," says Erdinc Sezgin, researcher at SciLifeLab and the Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet. "The method provides an integrated picture of the health status of the immune cells and can serve as a complement to more time-consuming and costly analyses."
May affect disease processes
The analyses revealed clear differences in, among other things, the organization of cell membranes and mitochondrial function, particularly in different types of T cells. These changes could also be linked to alterations in the cells' lipid composition and which genes were active.
"This suggests that the physical properties of cells indicate health and are important in disease processes in atherosclerosis and possibly also in other diseases," says Sezgin.
The study is a so-called proof-of-concept study, meaning an early step demonstrating that the principle works. The next step is to investigate the method in larger patient cohorts and in other diseases.
Publication details
Cenk O. Gurdap et al, Spectral biophysical cytometry with nanosensors reveals remodelling of immune cells in atherosclerosis, Nature Nanotechnology (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-026-02236-8
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Citation: Fluorescent nanosensors help distinguish between healthy and diseased immune cells in blood samples (2026, August 6) retrieved 6 August 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-08-fluorescent-nanosensors-distinguish-healthy-diseased.html
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