Figure 4.

Microfluidic resistive pulse sensing data of selected samples visualizing the fits of the particle size distribution (PSD) with a bin width of 10 nm. Data were acquired at a single dilution and fitted with a third-order polynomial function; fitted data were then adjusted for dilution factors used during the flow cytometry experiment. Plots start from 75 nm, which is the lower limit of detection (LoD) for the microfluidic resistive pulse sensing measurements. The LoD for the flow cytometer is indicated with dotted lines for lipoproteins (110 nm) and with dashed lines for extracellular vesicles (146 nm). The purple, dashed diagonal line indicates the particle concentrations below the LoD of the flow cytometer needed to trigger swarm detection. (A) PSDs at a total dilution of 1.1 × 10²-fold for all samples. (B) PSDs at a count rate of 1.3 ± 0.2 × 10⁴ events·s⁻¹, representing total dilutions of 11-fold for donors 1 and 2, 1.1 × 10²-fold for donor 3, and 3.6 × 10²-fold for donors 4 and 5. (C) PSDs when samples fulfill defined criteria to prevent swarm detection, representing a total dilution of 1.1 × 10²-fold for donors 1, 2, and 3 and 3.6 × 10²-fold (count rate, 1.3 ± 0.2 × 10⁴ events·s⁻¹) for donors 4 and 5.