Would 50-70% ethanol or methanol work? These are used in cytology.

Dear Barbara,

knowing that your problem might correspond with the proverbial “squarepeg in the round hole” (/) I have never read or heared about such a .

Not knowing about the type of your cells to be measured and which kind of measurement (e.g. intracellular pH, concentration of “cell sap”, ingredients / ional contents of, quantification of intracellular water mass, or density …. etc.,etc.) it is nearly impossible to imagine the task. Live or dead cells? If I don’t have a clue on the / a solution which eventually might maintain their = the cells' “life” at least to the end of your measurements. will not display the real content(s) of their intracellular liquid”, if live cells were /are fixed and / or processed anyway ( e.g. by dehydration steps as questioned by Noemi): intracellular fluid will either be altered, destroyed or substituted. Also the requested milieu of measurement (“air dry conditions”) will prevent such a measurement.

You also cannot “squeeze the orange dry" like a lemon (and measure what you got in the extruded juice…),

Any sort of with recovery of the former fluid will not be an option, I guess….

.

I – with very limited knowledge in singe cell analysis – could only imagine

i) direct measurement with a specific electrode system,

ii) to use Googling for search phrase e. g. < Measurement of intracellular fluid > (use without parentheses) and you’ll get 5.840.000 results…reading and eventually refine your search phrase(s). One of those Google Search - results (http://www.liv.ac.uk/~petesmif/teaching/1bds_mb/notes/fluid/bfcalc.htm ) perhaps giving at least a rough answer to solve your problem, whereas @ https://sites.google.com/site/mymedicalnotessite/medical-physiology/body-fluid-compartments-volume-composition-measuring is stated:

• Intracellular fluid volume measurement:

-Cannot be measured directly

-Can be calculated by subtracting ECF volume from total body water

Whether the article:

Feijó Delgado F, Cermak N, Hecht VC, Son S, Li Y, et al. (2013) Intracellular Water Exchange for Measuring the Dry Mass, Water Mass and Changes in Chemical Composition of Living Cells. PLoS ONE 8(7): e67590. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0067590 (publ.July 02, 2013) @

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0067590

could be of help anyway must be left open.

Nevertheless I am really eager for seeing solutions proposed by more sophisticated researchers in the field of cell biology/analysis.

Best wishes and best of luck,

Wolfgang

You can fix cells in 2.5% glutaraldehyde DPBS and 1% osmium tetraoxide as it was described http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0069774

Thank you very much for your answers. Sorry for my late answers

Dear Wolfgang H. Muss thank you to your very detail answer. To respond to your question we try to analyse cell permitivity using device requiring dry air condition. How you can imagine, this "detail" complicates "a little bit" our work with cells!!

Dear Olesya Klymenko, thank you for this reference, I know a very similar method.

Dear Noemi Sebastiao, I forget but we try whith ethanol and methanol but unfortunately it was not a good protocol for our cells!!

Would it be an option for you to isolate living single cells with laser microdissection? Please find the protocol attached.

http://www.molecular-machines.com/libraries.files/Live_Cell_Microdissection321.pdf