Hydrodynamic Cell Trapping for High Throughput Single-Cell Applications
Journal article, 2013

The possibility to conduct complete cell assays under a precisely controlled environment while consuming minor amounts of chemicals and precious drugs have made microfluidics an interesting candidate for quantitative single-cell studies. Here, we present an application-specific microfluidic device, cellcomb, capable of conducting high-throughput single-cell experiments. The system employs pure hydrodynamic forces for easy cell trapping and is readily fabricated in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) using soft lithography techniques. The cell-trapping array consists of V-shaped pockets designed to accommodate up to six Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast cells) with the average diameter of 4 μm. We used this platform to monitor the impact of flow rate modulation on the arsenite (As(III)) uptake in yeast. Redistribution of a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged version of the heat shock protein Hsp104 was followed over time as read out. Results showed a clear reverse correlation between the arsenite uptake and three different adjusted low = 25 nL min−1, moderate = 50 nL min−1, and high = 100 nL min−1 flow rates. We consider the presented device as the first building block of a future integrated application-specific cell-trapping array that can be used to conduct complete single cell experiments on different cell types.

single cell

high-throughput

yeast

hydrodynamic trapping

microfluidics

arsenite

PDMS

fluorescence microscopy

Author

Amin Abbaszadehbanaeiyan

University of Gothenburg

Doryaneh Ahmadpour

University of Gothenburg

Caroline B. Adiels

University of Gothenburg

Mattias Goksör

University of Gothenburg

Micromachines

2072666x (eISSN)

Vol. 4 4 414-430

Subject Categories

Biophysics

DOI

10.3390/mi4040414

More information

Created

10/10/2017