{"doi":"10.1101/2024.09.26.615179","title":"Buoyant mass reveals distinct T cell states predictive of checkpoint response","abstract":"T cells are central to immune defense, yet existing molecular and phenotypic assays do not fully capture a cell’s intrinsic immune potential. Here we show that a single physical property, buoyant mass, reveals hidden heterogeneity within phenotypically similar, resting CD8 + T cells. Using suspended microchannel resonator measurements, we identify two distinct populations: “light” cells, enriched for mitochondrial content but prone to delayed activation and exhaustion, and “heavy” cells, biosynthetically poised for proliferation and memory formation. In patients with melanoma receiving immune checkpoint blockade, pre-treatment buoyant mass profiling of circulating T cells predicted therapeutic response with an accuracy comparable with standard tumor-derived biomarkers. Our findings establish buoyant mass as a label-free, stimulation-independent measure of systemic T cell fitness, providing a rapid and broadly applicable framework for immune profiling and response prediction in cancer and beyond.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2024,"id":487376,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9449,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":272485,"name":"Ye Zhang","orcid":"0000-0003-3057-6759","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331321,"name":"Sarah M. Duquette","orcid":"0009-0004-9178-5604","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331682,"name":"Robert J. Kimmerling","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331683,"name":"James C. Kostas","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":457524,"name":"Krystal K. Lum","orcid":"0000-0002-7523-0420","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":948825,"name":"Rachel LaBella","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331684,"name":"Selim Olcum","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":948824,"name":"Madeleine Vacha","orcid":null,"position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331685,"name":"Steve Wasserman","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331686,"name":"Reginald Aikins","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331687,"name":"Katie Katsis","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331688,"name":"Thomas R. Usherwood","orcid":null,"position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":28324,"name":"Sonia Cohen","orcid":"0000-0003-0172-5620","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":241050,"name":"Teresa Dinter","orcid":"0000-0003-4764-501X","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":16010,"name":"Aleigha Lawless","orcid":"0009-0009-3861-3164","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":404,"name":"Tatyana Sharova","orcid":"0000-0003-2123-3906","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1119892,"name":"Mark Stevens","orcid":"0000-0003-2744-1685","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331689,"name":"Gianfranco L. Yee","orcid":null,"position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1331322,"name":"Weida Wu","orcid":"0009-0002-1551-6993","position":19,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":355292,"name":"Stefani Spranger","orcid":"0000-0003-3257-4546","position":20,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":272484,"name":"Teemu P. Miettinen","orcid":"0000-0002-5975-200X","position":21,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":277733,"name":"Ileana M. Cristea","orcid":"0000-0002-6533-2458","position":22,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":411,"name":"Genevieve M. Boland","orcid":"0000-0002-7522-6173","position":23,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":272487,"name":"Scott R. Manalis","orcid":"0000-0001-5223-9433","position":24,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":461442,"name":"Jiaquan Yu","orcid":"0000-0002-2998-2226","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:08:06.013846Z","pmid":"41332715","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}