Abstract
Encapsulation of single cells is a challenging task in droplet microfluidics due to the random compartmentalization of cells dictated by Poisson statistics. In this paper, a microfluidic device was developed to improve the single-cell encapsulation rate by integrating droplet generation with fluorescence-activated droplet sorting. After cells were loaded into aqueous droplets by hydrodynamic focusing, an on-flight fluorescence-activated sorting process was conducted to isolate droplets containing one cell. Encapsulation of fluorescent polystyrene beads was investigated to evaluate the developed method. A single-bead encapsulation rate of more than 98 % was achieved under the optimized conditions. Application to encapsulate single HeLa cells was further demonstrated with a single-cell encapsulation rate of 94.1 %, which is about 200 % higher than those obtained by random compartmentalization. We expect this new method to provide a useful platform for encapsulating single cells, facilitating the development of high-throughput cell-based assays.
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The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial supports from National Basic Research Program of China (2011CB910403), National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2011AA02A103) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (31070770).
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Liang Wu and Pu Chen contributed equally to this work.
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Wu, L., Chen, P., Dong, Y. et al. Encapsulation of single cells on a microfluidic device integrating droplet generation with fluorescence-activated droplet sorting. Biomed Microdevices 15, 553–560 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-013-9754-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10544-013-9754-z