A Reaction‐Diffusion Frame for Accessing Metabolic O <sub>2</sub> Fluxes in Single Microalgal Cells with Low‐Cost Wide‐Field Imaging of Nanosensor Luminescence Lifetime
In cells, many small molecules are membrane-permeant. This feature opens a road to analyze their flux of production or consumption by quantitatively interpreting the map of their extracellular concentration within a reaction-diffusion frame. Here, this approach is implemented with a new wide-field lifetime imaging protocol applied to single microalgae cells sparsely deposited on an agarose pad loaded with a luminescent dioxygen (O<sub>2</sub>) nanosensor. The resulting maps are processed to access the spatial distribution of the O<sub>2</sub> concentration in the plane of the cells. After fitting the data, the cellular O<sub>2</sub> flux is extracted, evidencing a span of magnitudes and angular dependencies in the balance between photosynthesis and respiration. Beyond pointing to the disparity of individual behavior within the same colony, this work validates a simple approach for characterizing metabolic fluxes of membrane-permeant molecules down to the single-cell level.
Authors
- Laurent Thouin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2635-5825)
- Ludovic Jullien (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8561-8077)
- Karim Benzerara (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0553-0137)
- Alix Boulouis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2552-3938)
- Xiaojiang Xie
- Thomas Le Saux (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2387-2624)
- Valentine Rollot
- François Guyot (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4622-2218)
- Emmanuelle Marie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3800-6769)
- Eliora Israelievitch
- Hélène Merceron
- Théo Villarubias
Institutions
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HK)
- Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (FR)
- École Normale Supérieure - PSL (FR)
- Sorbonne Université (FR)
- Sorbonne Paris Cité (FR)
- Laboratoire de Minéralogie & Cosmochimie du Muséum (FR)
- École Normale Supérieure (BI)
- Institut de minéralogie, de physique des matériaux et de cosmochimie (FR)
- Biologie du Chloroplaste et Perception de la Lumière chez les Microalgues (FR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Science
- Published
- 2025-08-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202510903
- Primary Topic
- Analytical Chemistry and Sensors
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- HORIZON EUROPE European Innovation Council