Microfluidic Devices for Biological Quantitative Analysis

A special issue of Chemosensors (ISSN 2227-9040). This special issue belongs to the section "Analytical Methods, Instrumentation and Miniaturization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 January 2023) | Viewed by 12432

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. The State Key Laboratory for Artificial Microstructures and Mesoscopic Physics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China;
2. Center for Quantitative Biology, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China;
3. Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou 325011, China
Interests: biophysics; microfluidics; quantitative biology; cell assay

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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanics and Engineering Science, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Interests: Cell Mechanics; Mechanobiology; Microfluidics; Mechanics of Soft Materials
Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou 325011, China
Interests: Microfluidics; Fluorecence imaging; Quantitative analysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microfluidics are emerging as a highly attractive technology for chemo- and bioanalytical applications. It is the science and technology of systems that process or manipulate small amounts of fluids or chemicals, offering significant advantages in terms of analytical speed, separation efficiency, reduced sample/reagent consumption, and elimination of contamination. More importantly, microfluidic tools provide exquisite control of cells and media in both time and space, leading to accurate biological molecular detection, real-time cell response studies, and precisely biological analysis. Considering the pursuit of understanding the quantitative processes and functions in biology, there is an immense need for the development of fast, sensitive, and reliable analysis devices and methods.

The aims of this issue on “Microfluidic Devices for Biological Quantitative Analysis” is to highlight recent advances in the field of on-chip biological quantitative analysis and their applications. Both review articles and original research papers are solicited in, though not limited to, the following areas:

  • Novel microfluidic devices for biological quantitative analysis;
  • New biological analysis methods on microfluidic chips;
  • On-chip biological molecular/cell detection/separation;
  • Advanced microfluidic tools for disease diagnosis and studies;
  • Point-of-care bioassays;
  • Microfluidics-implemented biochemical assays;
  • Droplet-/paper- based microfluidic technologies for biochemistry and molecular biology;
  • Microfluidic platforms for biomedical applications;
  • Microfluidic systems for studying cell–biomaterial interactions.

Prof. Dr. Chunxiong Luo
Prof. Dr. Chunyang Xiong
Dr. Wei Yang
Guest Editors

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 2367 KiB  
Article
Multifunctional Superhydrophobic Platform for Control of Water Microdroplets by Non-Uniform Electrostatic Field
by Georgii Pavliuk, Alexey Zhizhchenko and Oleg Vitrik
Chemosensors 2023, 11(2), 120; https://doi.org/10.3390/chemosensors11020120 - 6 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1412
Abstract
At the moment, manipulation of liquid microdroplets is required in various microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip devices, as well as advanced sensors. The platforms used for these purposes should provide the possibility of controlled selective movement and coalescence of droplets, and the manipulation speed should [...] Read more.
At the moment, manipulation of liquid microdroplets is required in various microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip devices, as well as advanced sensors. The platforms used for these purposes should provide the possibility of controlled selective movement and coalescence of droplets, and the manipulation speed should be sufficiently high (more than 10 mm/s). In addition, to facilitate their practical application, such platforms should have a simple planar geometry and low manufacturing cost. We report here a new method for microdroplet manipulation based on the use of non-uniform electrostatic fields. Our platform uses an electrode array embedded in a dielectric planar superhydrophobic substrate (50 × 50 mm). When a voltage is applied to a certain sequence of electrodes, a non-uniform electrostatic field is produced, which acts to attract a droplet on the substrate to the electrodes. This achieves a stepwise movement of the droplet. We realized non-contact, selective and high speed (up to 80 mm/s) movement of the individual droplets along specified trajectories (like a chess game) and their selective coalescence. It allowed us to demonstrate several controllable chemical reactions including an analytical one. In our opinion, this approach has a huge potential for chemical technology applications, especially in advanced sensors. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic Devices for Biological Quantitative Analysis)
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14 pages, 5115 KiB  
Article
Design of Christmas-Tree-like Microfluidic Gradient Generators for Cell-Based Studies
by Yu-Hsun Wang, Chi-Hung Ping and Yung-Shin Sun
Chemosensors 2023, 11(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/chemosensors11010002 - 20 Dec 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2949
Abstract
Microfluidic gradient generators (MGGs) provide a platform for investigating how cells respond to a concentration gradient or different concentrations of a specific chemical. Among these MGGs, those based on Christmas-tree-like structures possess advantages of precise control over the concentration gradient profile. However, in [...] Read more.
Microfluidic gradient generators (MGGs) provide a platform for investigating how cells respond to a concentration gradient or different concentrations of a specific chemical. Among these MGGs, those based on Christmas-tree-like structures possess advantages of precise control over the concentration gradient profile. However, in designing these devices, the lengths of channels are often not well considered so that flow rates across downstream outlets may not be uniform. If these outlets are used to culture cells, such non-uniformity will lead to different fluidic shear stresses in these culture chambers. As a result, cells subject to various fluidic stresses may respond differently in aspects of morphology, attachment, alignment and so on. This study reports the rationale for designing Christmas-tree-like MGGs to attain uniform flow rates across all outlets. The simulation results suggest that, to achieve uniform flow rates, the lengths of vertical channels should be as long as possible compared to those of horizontal channels, and modifying the partition of horizontal channels is more effective than elongating the lengths of vertical channels. In addition, PMMA-based microfluidic chips are fabricated to experimentally verify these results. In terms of chemical concentrations, perfect linear gradients are observed in devices with modified horizontal channels. This design rationale will definitely help in constructing optimal MGGs for cell-based applications including chemotherapy, drug resistance and drug screening. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic Devices for Biological Quantitative Analysis)
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12 pages, 2321 KiB  
Article
High-Efficiency Generation, Drug and Radiosensitivity Test of Multicellular Tumor Spheroids by a Novel Microdevice
by Siwei Ding, Chunyang Lu, Xiaoyi Sun, Tiancheng Li, Ye Zhao and Gen Yang
Chemosensors 2022, 10(8), 319; https://doi.org/10.3390/chemosensors10080319 - 8 Aug 2022
Viewed by 1946
Abstract
Compared with traditional two-dimensional culture, a three-dimensional (3D) culture platform can not only provide more reliable prediction results, but also provide a simple, inexpensive and less time-consuming method compared with animal models. A direct in vitro model of the patient’s tumor can help [...] Read more.
Compared with traditional two-dimensional culture, a three-dimensional (3D) culture platform can not only provide more reliable prediction results, but also provide a simple, inexpensive and less time-consuming method compared with animal models. A direct in vitro model of the patient’s tumor can help to achieve individualized and precise treatment. However, the existing 3D culture system based on microwell arrays has disadvantages, such as poor controllability, an uneven spheroid size, a long spheroid formation time, low-throughput and complicated operation, resulting in the need for considerable labor, etc. Here, we developed a new type of microdevice based on a 384-well plate/96-well plate microarray design. With our design, cells can quickly aggregate into clusters to form cell spheroids with better roundness. This design has the advantage of high throughput; the throughput is 33 times that of a 384-well plate. This novel microdevice is simple to process and convenient to detect without transferring the cell spheroid. The results show that the new microdevice can aggregate cells into spheroids within 24 h and can support drug and radiation sensitivity analyses in situ in approximately one week. In summary, our microdevices are fast, efficient, high-throughput, simple to process and easy to detect, providing a feasible tool for the clinical validation of individualized drug/radiation responses in patients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic Devices for Biological Quantitative Analysis)
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12 pages, 5561 KiB  
Article
Microwave Interferometric Cytometry for Signal Analysis of Single Yeast Cells
by Meng Zhang, Guangxin Huo, Juncheng Bao, Tomislav Markovic, Patrick Van Dijck and Bart Nauwelaers
Chemosensors 2022, 10(8), 318; https://doi.org/10.3390/chemosensors10080318 - 8 Aug 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1784
Abstract
Microwave dielectric sensing offers a rapid, label-free, and non-invasive way of characterization and sensing of biological materials at the microfluidic scale. In this work, a dielectric sensing is achieved with a microwave interferometric setup that is applied to cytometric applications. A fast way [...] Read more.
Microwave dielectric sensing offers a rapid, label-free, and non-invasive way of characterization and sensing of biological materials at the microfluidic scale. In this work, a dielectric sensing is achieved with a microwave interferometric setup that is applied to cytometric applications. A fast way to analyze and design an interferometric system at microwave frequencies in software tools is proposed together with a novel manufacturing and assembly process, which enables a short recovery time and avoids extensive microwave-microfluidic chip fabrication. The simulation and measurement results of the interferometric setup are in agreement with an excellent match at levels below S21 = −60 dB. The sensitive microwave setup is evaluated on measurements of 3 µm polystyrene spheres and finally applied for characterization of a widely used laboratory Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain, the S288C, in a frequency range from 4 to 18 GHz. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic Devices for Biological Quantitative Analysis)
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16 pages, 3203 KiB  
Article
Microfluidic-Enabled Multi-Cell-Densities-Patterning and Culture Device for Characterization of Yeast Strains’ Growth Rates under Mating Pheromone
by Jing Zhang, Wenting Shen, Zhiyuan Cai, Kaiyue Chen, Qi Ouyang, Ping Wei, Wei Yang and Chunxiong Luo
Chemosensors 2022, 10(4), 141; https://doi.org/10.3390/chemosensors10040141 - 8 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2479
Abstract
Yeast studies usually focus on exploring diversity in terms of a specific trait (such as growth rate, antibiotic resistance, or fertility) among extensive strains. Microfluidic chips improve these biological studies in a manner of high throughput and high efficiency. For a population study [...] Read more.
Yeast studies usually focus on exploring diversity in terms of a specific trait (such as growth rate, antibiotic resistance, or fertility) among extensive strains. Microfluidic chips improve these biological studies in a manner of high throughput and high efficiency. For a population study of yeast, it is of great significance to set a proper initial cell density for every strain under specific circumstances. Herein, we introduced a novel design of chip, which enables users to load cells in a gradient order (six alternatives) of initial cell density within one channel. We discussed several guidelines to choose the appropriate chamber to ensure successful data recording. With this chip, we successfully studied the growth rate of yeast strains under a mating response, which is crucial for yeasts to control growth behaviors for prosperous mating. We investigated the growth rate of eight different yeast strains under three different mating pheromone levels (0.3 μM, 1 μM, and 10 μM). Strains with, even, a six-fold in growth rate can be recorded, with the available data produced simultaneously. This work has provided an efficient and time-saving microfluidic platform, which enables loading cells in a pattern of multi-cell densities for a yeast population experiment, especially for a high-throughput study. Besides, a quantitatively analyzed growth rate of different yeast strains shall reveal inspiring perspectives for studies concerning yeast population behavior with a stimulated mating pheromone. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microfluidic Devices for Biological Quantitative Analysis)
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