On‐Demand Droplet Collection for Capturing Single Cells

Droplet‐based microfluidic techniques are extensively used in efficient manipulation and genome‐wide analysis of individual cells, probing the heterogeneity among populations of individuals. However, the extraction and isolation of single cells from individual droplets remains difficult due to the i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) Germany), 2020-03, Vol.16 (9), p.e1902889-n/a
Main Authors: Nan, Lang, Lai, Man Yuk Alison, Tang, Matthew Yuk Heng, Chan, Yau Kei, Poon, Leo Lit Man, Shum, Ho Cheung
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cell Movement
Cell Separation - methods
Demand
droplet microfluidics
Droplets
Humans
Microfluidic Analytical Techniques - instrumentation
Microfluidics
Nanotechnology
quantitative collection
single cell
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Summary:Droplet‐based microfluidic techniques are extensively used in efficient manipulation and genome‐wide analysis of individual cells, probing the heterogeneity among populations of individuals. However, the extraction and isolation of single cells from individual droplets remains difficult due to the inevitable sample loss during processing. Herein, an automated system for accurate collection of defined numbers of droplets containing single cells is presented. Based on alternate sorting and dispensing in three branch channels, the droplet number can be precisely controlled down to single‐droplet resolution. While encapsulating single cells and reserving one branch as a waste channel, sorting can be seamlessly integrated to enable on‐demand collection of single cells. Combined with a lossless recovery strategy, this technique achieves capture and culture of individual cells with a harvest rate of over 95%. The on‐demand droplet collection technique has great potential to realize quantitative processing and analysis of single cells for elucidating the role of cell‐to‐cell variations. An automated microfluidic system for accurate droplet collection is presented. Through alternate operations in separate channels, this system enables precise control over droplet number to realize continuous single‐cell capture. The high‐throughput, high‐resolution, and high‐viability performance of the system is demonstrated though culture of two practical cell lines, highlighting its potential as a powerful tool for single‐cell research.
ISSN:1613-6810
1613-6829
DOI:10.1002/smll.201902889