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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Adam Abate

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Guest Editor

Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
Interests: single cell analysis; next-gen sequencing; bioinformatics; soft-matter physics; droplet-based microfluidics; directed evolution; high-throughput screening; sequence-function mapping; protein engineering; synthetic biology; systems biology

Dr. Leqian Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
Interests: single cell sequencing; microfluidics; high-throughput screening; metabolic engineering; synthetic biology; system biology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cellular heterogeneity is a fundamental feature of most biological systems, and microfluidic technologies are enabling its precision characterization for the first time. A key feature that enables this, is the ability of microfluidic devices to efficiently isolate and perform molecular analysis on single cells. Another key feature is the potential of these systems to scale to the analysis of large populations. In this Special Issue, we invite research papers, short communications, and review articles focused on microfluidic techniques enabling for single cell analysis, with a special emphasis on methods for scalable molecular analysis of single cells.

Dr. Adam Abate
Dr. Leqian Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

microfluidic techniques
cellular heterogeneity
single cell analysis
single cell separation, manipulation
single cell sequencing
single cell proteomics
single cell response
lab on chip
mass spec
metabolomics
chemical assays
imaging
combinatorial analyses—DNA/RNA/imaging

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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10544 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

A Droplet Microfluidics Based Platform for Mining Metagenomic Libraries for Natural Compounds

by Elias Theodorou, Randall Scanga, Mariusz Twardowski, Michael P. Snyder and Eric Brouzes

Micromachines 2017, 8(8), 230; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi8080230 - 25 Jul 2017

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 5040

Abstract

Historically, microbes from the environment have been a reliable source for novel bio-active compounds. Cloning and expression of metagenomic DNA in heterologous strains of bacteria has broadened the range of potential compounds accessible. However, such metagenomic libraries have been under-exploited for applications in mammalian cells because of a lack of integrated methods. We present an innovative platform to systematically mine natural resources for pro-apoptotic compounds that relies on the combination of bacterial delivery and droplet microfluidics. Using the violacein operon from C. violaceum as a model, we demonstrate that E. coli modified to be invasive can serve as an efficient delivery vehicle of natural compounds. This approach permits the seamless screening of metagenomic libraries with mammalian cell assays and alleviates the need for laborious extraction of natural compounds. In addition, we leverage the unique properties of droplet microfluidics to amplify bacterial clones and perform clonal screening at high-throughput in place of one-compound-per-well assays in multi-well format. We also use droplet microfluidics to establish a cell aggregate strategy that overcomes the issue of background apoptosis. Altogether, this work forms the foundation of a versatile platform to efficiently mine the metagenome for compounds with therapeutic potential. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Enabling Microfluidic Technologies for Single Cell Analysis)

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Graphical abstract

Other

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5641 KiB

Open AccessLetter

Observation Interface of PDMS Membrane in a Microfluidic Chip Based on One-Step Molding

by Xiangyu Chen, Shuangyue Hou, Jian Chu, Ying Xiong, Penghui Xiong, Gang Liu and Yangchao Tian

Micromachines 2017, 8(3), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi8030064 - 23 Feb 2017

Cited by 51 | Viewed by 6250

Abstract

Nowadays, researchers are focusing on sorting, characterizing and detecting micron or submicron particles or bacteria in microfluidic chips. However, some contradictions hinder the applications of conventional microfluidic chips, including the low working distance of high resolving power microscopy and the low light transmittance of conventional microfluidic chips. In this paper, a rapid and readily accessible microfluidic fabrication method is presented to realize observation with high magnification microscopy. With the one-step molding process, the interconnections, the thin observation interface of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane and microfluidic channels were integrated into an intact PDMS replica. Three kinds of PDMS replicas with different auxiliary beams were designed and optimized by leakage experiments and analytical software. The observation interfaces of a 170 μm thickness PDMS membrane enlarges the application domain of microfluidic chips. By adopting a solution of high magnification observation, microfluidic devices could be applied widely in medical science, biology and material science. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Enabling Microfluidic Technologies for Single Cell Analysis)

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