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Coelho BJ, Neto JP, Sieira B, Moura AT, Fortunato E, Martins R, Baptista PV, Igreja R, Águas H. Hybrid Digital-Droplet Microfluidic Chip for Applications in Droplet Digital Nucleic Acid Amplification: Design, Fabrication and Characterization. SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2023; 23:4927. [PMID: 37430841 DOI: 10.3390/s23104927] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2023] [Revised: 05/05/2023] [Accepted: 05/17/2023] [Indexed: 07/12/2023]
Abstract
Microfluidic-based platforms have become a hallmark for chemical and biological assays, empowering micro- and nano-reaction vessels. The fusion of microfluidic technologies (digital microfluidics, continuous-flow microfluidics, and droplet microfluidics, just to name a few) presents great potential for overcoming the inherent limitations of each approach, while also elevating their respective strengths. This work exploits the combination of digital microfluidics (DMF) and droplet microfluidics (DrMF) on a single substrate, where DMF enables droplet mixing and further acts as a controlled liquid supplier for a high-throughput nano-liter droplet generator. Droplet generation is performed at a flow-focusing region, operating on dual pressure: negative pressure applied to the aqueous phase and positive pressure applied to the oil phase. We evaluate the droplets produced with our hybrid DMF-DrMF devices in terms of droplet volume, speed, and production frequency and further compare them with standalone DrMF devices. Both types of devices enable customizable droplet production (various volumes and circulation speeds), yet hybrid DMF-DrMF devices yield more controlled droplet production while achieving throughputs that are similar to standalone DrMF devices. These hybrid devices enable the production of up to four droplets per second, which reach a maximum circulation speed close to 1540 µm/s and volumes as low as 0.5 nL.
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Affiliation(s)
- Beatriz J Coelho
- CENIMAT|i3N, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon and CEMOP/UNINOVA, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
- UCIBIO, I4HB, Department of Life Sciences, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
| | - Joana P Neto
- CENIMAT|i3N, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon and CEMOP/UNINOVA, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
| | - Bárbara Sieira
- CENIMAT|i3N, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon and CEMOP/UNINOVA, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
| | - André T Moura
- CENIMAT|i3N, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon and CEMOP/UNINOVA, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
| | - Elvira Fortunato
- CENIMAT|i3N, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon and CEMOP/UNINOVA, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
| | - Rodrigo Martins
- CENIMAT|i3N, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon and CEMOP/UNINOVA, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
| | - Pedro V Baptista
- UCIBIO, I4HB, Department of Life Sciences, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
| | - Rui Igreja
- CENIMAT|i3N, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon and CEMOP/UNINOVA, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
| | - Hugo Águas
- CENIMAT|i3N, Department of Materials Science, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, NOVA University of Lisbon and CEMOP/UNINOVA, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
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Liu Y, Wang S, Lyu M, Xie R, Guo W, He Y, Shi X, Wang Y, Qi J, Zhu Q, Zhang H, Luo T, Chen H, Zhu Y, Dong X, Li Z, Gu Y, Liu L, Xu X, Liu Y. Droplet Microfluidics Enables Tracing of Target Cells at the Single-Cell Transcriptome Resolution. Bioengineering (Basel) 2022; 9:674. [PMID: 36354585 PMCID: PMC9687293 DOI: 10.3390/bioengineering9110674] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2022] [Revised: 11/05/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2023] Open
Abstract
The rapid promotion of single-cell omics in various fields has begun to help solve many problems encountered in research, including precision medicine, prenatal diagnosis, and embryo development. Meanwhile, single-cell techniques are also constantly updated with increasing demand. For some specific target cells, the workflow from droplet screening to single-cell sequencing is a preferred option and should reduce the impact of operation steps, such as demulsification and cell recovery. We developed an all-in-droplet method integrating cell encapsulation, target sorting, droplet picoinjection, and single-cell transcriptome profiling on chips to achieve labor-saving monitoring of TCR-T cells. As a proof of concept, in this research, TCR-T cells were encapsulated, sorted, and performed single-cell transcriptome sequencing (scRNA-seq) by injecting reagents into droplets. It avoided the tedious operation of droplet breakage and re-encapsulation between droplet sorting and scRNA-seq. Moreover, convenient device operation will accelerate the progress of chip marketization. The strategy achieved an excellent recovery performance of single-cell transcriptome with a median gene number over 4000 and a cross-contamination rate of 8.2 ± 2%. Furthermore, this strategy allows us to develop a device with high integrability to monitor infused TCR-T cells, which will promote the development of adoptive T cell immunotherapy and their clinical application.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Liu
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
| | - Shiyu Wang
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Menghua Lyu
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Run Xie
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
| | - Weijin Guo
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Shantou University, Shantou 515063, China
| | - Ying He
- Department of Gynaecological Oncology, Cancer Hospital Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Shenzhen Center, Shenzhen 518116, China
| | - Xuyang Shi
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Yang Wang
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
| | - Jingyu Qi
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
| | | | - Hui Zhang
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
| | - Tao Luo
- Department of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361101, China
| | - Huaying Chen
- School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Yonggang Zhu
- School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518055, China
| | - Xuan Dong
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
| | - Zida Li
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
| | - Ying Gu
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
| | - Longqi Liu
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen 518000, China
| | - Xun Xu
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Genome Read and Write, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518120, China
| | - Ya Liu
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China
- Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Single-Cell Omics, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518100, China
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Trossbach M, de Lucas Sanz M, Seashore-Ludlow B, Joensson HN. A Portable, Negative-Pressure Actuated, Dynamically Tunable Microfluidic Droplet Generator. MICROMACHINES 2022; 13:1823. [PMID: 36363843 PMCID: PMC9697964 DOI: 10.3390/mi13111823] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2022] [Revised: 10/12/2022] [Accepted: 10/21/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
Droplet microfluidics utilize a monodisperse water-in-oil emulsion, with an expanding toolbox offering a wide variety of operations on a range of droplet sizes at high throughput. However, translation of these capabilities into applications for non-expert laboratories to fully harness the inherent potential of microscale manipulations is woefully trailing behind. One major obstacle is that droplet microfluidic setups often rely on custom fabricated devices, costly liquid actuators, and are not easily set up and operated by non-specialists. This impedes wider adoption of droplet technologies in, e.g., the life sciences. Here, we demonstrate an easy-to-use minimal droplet production setup with a small footprint, built exclusively from inexpensive commercially sourced parts, powered and controlled by a laptop. We characterize the components of the system and demonstrate production of droplets ranging in volume from 3 to 21 nL in a single microfluidic device. Furthermore, we describe the dynamic tuning of droplet composition. Finally, we demonstrate the production of droplet-templated cell spheroids from primary cells, where the mobility and simplicity of the setup enables its use within a biosafety cabinet. Taken together, we believe this minimal droplet setup is ideal to drive broad adoption of droplet microfluidics technology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martin Trossbach
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology & Science for Life Laboratory, 17165 Solna, Sweden
| | - Marta de Lucas Sanz
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology & Science for Life Laboratory, 17165 Solna, Sweden
| | | | - Haakan N. Joensson
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology & Science for Life Laboratory, 17165 Solna, Sweden
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Ogo A, Okayama S, Nakatani M, Hashimoto M. CO 2-Laser-Micromachined, Polymer Microchannels with a Degassed PDMS slab for the Automatic Production of Monodispersed Water-in-Oil Droplets. MICROMACHINES 2022; 13:1389. [PMID: 36144013 PMCID: PMC9502940 DOI: 10.3390/mi13091389] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/09/2022] [Revised: 08/17/2022] [Accepted: 08/23/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
In our recent study, we fabricated a pump/tube-connection-free microchip comprising top and bottom polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) slabs to produce monodispersed water-in-oil droplets in a fully automated, fluid-manipulation fashion. All microstructures required for droplet production were directly patterned on the surfaces of the two PDMS slabs through CO2-laser micromachining, facilitating the fast fabrication of the droplet-production microchips. In the current extension study, we replaced the bottom PDMS slab, which served as a microfluidic layer in the microchip, with a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) slab. This modification was based on our idea that the bottom PDMS slab does not contribute to the automatic fluid manipulation and that replacing the bottom PDMS slab with a more affordable and accessible, ready-to-use polymer slab, such as a PMMA, would further facilitate the rapid and low-cost fabrication of the connection-free microchips. Using a new PMMA/PDMS microchip, we produced water-in-oil droplets with high degree of size-uniformity (a coefficient of variation for droplet diameters of <5%) without a decrease in the droplet production rate (~270 droplets/s) as compared with that achieved via the previous PDMS/PDMS microchip (~220 droplets/s).
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Facile and scalable tubing-free sample loading for droplet microfluidics. Sci Rep 2022; 12:13340. [PMID: 35922529 PMCID: PMC9349288 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-17352-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2022] [Accepted: 07/25/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Droplet microfluidics has in recent years found a wide range of analytical and bioanalytical applications. In droplet microfluidics, the samples that are discretized into droplets within the devices are predominantly loaded through tubings, but such tubing-based sample loading has drawbacks such as limited scalability for processing many samples, difficulty for automation, and sample wastage. While advances in autosamplers have alleviated some of these drawbacks, sample loading that can instead obviate tubings offers a potentially promising alternative but has been underexplored. To fill the gap, we introduce herein a droplet device that features a new Tubing Eliminated Sample Loading Interface (TESLI). TESLI integrates a network of programmable pneumatic microvalves that regulate vacuum and pressure sources so that successive sub-microliter samples can be directly spotted onto the open-to-atmosphere TESLI inlet, vacuumed into the device, and pressurized into nanoliter droplets within the device with minimal wastage. The same vacuum and pressure regulation also endows TESLI with cleaning and sample switching capabilities, thus enabling scalable processing of many samples in succession. Moreover, we implement a pair of TESLIs in our device to parallelize and alternate their operation as means to minimizing idle time. For demonstration, we use our device to successively process 44 samples into droplets—a number that can further scale. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of tubing-free sample loading and a promising approach for advancing droplet microfluidics.
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Increasing insulin measurement throughput by fluorescence anisotropy imaging immunoassays. Anal Chim Acta 2022; 1212:339942. [DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2022.339942] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2022] [Revised: 05/10/2022] [Accepted: 05/11/2022] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
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Low Cost, Easily-Assembled Centrifugal Buoyancy-Based Emulsification and Digital PCR. MICROMACHINES 2022; 13:mi13020171. [PMID: 35208296 PMCID: PMC8924881 DOI: 10.3390/mi13020171] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2021] [Revised: 01/18/2022] [Accepted: 01/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Microfluidic-based droplet generation approaches require the design of microfluidic chips and a precise lithography process, which require skilled technicians and a long manufacturing time. Here we developed a centrifugal buoyancy-based emulsification (CBbE) method for producing droplets with high efficiency and minimal fabrication time. Our approach is to fabricate a droplet generation module that can be easily assembled using syringe needles and PCR tubes. With this module and a common centrifuge, high-throughput droplet generation with controllable droplet size could be realized in a few minutes. Experiments showed that the droplet diameter depended mainly on centrifugal speed, and droplets with controllable diameter from 206 to 158 μm could be generated under a centrifugal acceleration range from 14 to 171.9 g. Excellent droplet uniformity was achieved (CV < 3%) when centrifugal acceleration was greater than 108 g. We performed digital PCR tests through the CBbE approach and demonstrated that this cost-effective method not only eliminates the usage of complex microfluidic devices and control systems but also greatly suppresses the loss of materials and cross-contamination. CBbE-enabled droplet generation combines both easiness and robustness, and breaks the technical challenges by using conventional lab equipment and supplies.
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Formation and Elimination of Satellite Droplets during Monodisperse Droplet Generation by Using Piezoelectric Method. MICROMACHINES 2021; 12:mi12080921. [PMID: 34442543 PMCID: PMC8398856 DOI: 10.3390/mi12080921] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2021] [Revised: 07/25/2021] [Accepted: 07/28/2021] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
One of the key questions in the generation of monodisperse droplets is how to eliminate satellite droplets. This paper investigates the formation and elimination of satellite droplets during the generation of monodisperse deionized water droplets based on a piezoelectric method. We estimated the effects of two crucial parameters—the pulse frequency for driving the piezoelectric transducer (PZT) tube and the volume flow rate of the pumping liquid—on the generation of monodisperse droplets of the expected size. It was found that by adjusting the pulse frequency to harmonize with the volume flow rate, the satellite droplets can be eliminated through their coalescence with the subsequent mother droplets. An increase in the tuning pulse frequency led to a decrease in the size of the monodisperse droplets generated. Among three optimum conditions (OCs) (OC1: 20 mL/h, 20 kHz; OC2: 30 mL/h, 30 kHz; and OC3: 40 mL/h, 40 kHz), the sizes of the generated monodisperse deionized water droplets followed a bimodal distribution in OC1 and OC2, whereas they followed a Gaussian distribution in OC3. The average diameters were 87.8 μm (OC1), 85.9 μm (OC2), and 84.8 μm (OC3), which were 8.46%, 6.14%, and 4.69% greater than the theoretical one (81.0 μm), respectively. This monodisperse droplet generation technology is a promising step in the production of monodisperse aerosols for engineering applications.
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