A novel integrated microfluidic chip for on-demand electrostatic droplet charging and sorting

On-demand droplet sorting is extensively applied for the efficient manipulation and genome-wide analysis of individual cells.However,state-of-the-art microfluidic chips for droplet sorting still suffer from low sorting speeds,sample loss,and labor-intensive preparation procedures.Here,we demonstrate the development of a novel microfluidic chip that integrates droplet generation,on-demand electrostatic droplet charging,and high-throughput sorting.The charging electrode is a copper wire buried above the nozzle of the microchannel,and the deflecting electrode is the phosphate buffered saline in the microchannel,which greatly simplifies the structure and fabrication process of the chip.Moreover,this chip is capable of high-frequency droplet generation and sorting,with a frequency of 11.757 kHz in the drop state.The chip completes the selective charging process via electrostatic induction during droplet generation.On-demand charged microdroplets can arbitrarilymove to specific exit channels in a three-dimensional(3D)-deflected electric field,which can be controlled according to user requirements,and the flux of droplet deflection is thereby significantly enhanced.Furthermore,a lossless modification strategy is presented to improve the accuracy of droplet deflection or harvest rate from 97.49% to 99.38% by monitoring the frequency of droplet generation in real time and feeding it back to the charging signal.This chip has great potential for quantitative processing and analysis of single cells for elucidating cell-to-cell variations.

Droplet microfluidic chip for precise monitoring of dynamic solution changes

In this work,an automated microfluidic chip that uses negative pressure to sample and analyze solutions with high temporal resolution was developed.The chip has a T-shaped channel for mixing the sample with a fluorescent indicator,a flow-focusing channel for generating droplets in oil,and a long storage channel for incubating and detecting the droplets.By monitoring the fluorescence intensity of the droplets,the device could detect changes in solution accurately over time.The chip can generate droplets at frequencies of up to 42 Hz with a mixing ratio of 1:1 and a temporal resolution of 3–6 s.It had excellent linearity in detecting fluorescein solution in the concentration range 1–5μM.This droplet microfluidic chip provides several advantages over traditional methods,including high temporal resolution,stable droplet generation,and faster flow rates.This approach could be applied to monitoring calcium ions with a dynamic range from 102 to 107 nM and a detection limit of 10 nM.

In vitro study of emodin-induced nephrotoxicity in human renal glomerular endothelial cells on a microfluidic chip

Emodin is an effective component of rhubarb with positive pharmacological effects on human health.However,it is also toxic to different cells or tissues to varying degrees.The effects of emodin on glomerular endothelial cells(GECs)remain to be tested,and the documented works were always performed in vitro and hardly reflect the real physiological situation.To study the effects of emodin on GECs in a biomimetic environment,we utilized a microfluidic chip to assess the physiological reaction of human renal glomerular endothelial cells to various concentrations of emodin in this work.The results showed that emodin caused cytotoxicity,impaired glomerular filtration barrier integrity to macromolecules,and increased barrier permeability in a dose-dependent manner.With the increase in emodin concentration,the concentration of the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-α,interleukin(IL)-6,transforming growth factor-β1,and monocyte chemoattractant protein(MCP-1)increased while the production of inflammatory cytokine IL-6 first increased and then decreased with the increase in emodin concentration.Our findings shed new light on emodin-induced nephrotoxicity and provide insights for the application of microfluidic chip devices to reveal drug-cell interactions.

Advances in microfluidic chips based on islet hormone-sensing techniques

Diabetes mellitus is a global health problem resulting from islet dysfunction or insulin resistance.The mechanisms of islet dysfunction are still under investigation.Islet hormone secretion is the main function of islets,and serves an important role in the homeostasis of blood glucose.Elucidating the detailed mechanism of islet hormone secretome distortion can provide clues for the treatment of diabetes.Therefore,it is crucial to develop accurate,real-time,laborsaving,high-throughput,automated,and cost-effective techniques for the sensing of islet secretome.Microfluidic chips,an elegant platform that combines biology,engineering,computer science,and biomaterials,have attracted tremendous interest from scientists in the field of diabetes worldwide.These tiny devices are miniatures of traditional experimental systems with more advantages of timesaving,reagent-minimization,automation,high-throughput,and online detection.These features of microfluidic chips meet the demands of islet secretome analysis and a variety of chips have been designed in the past 20 years.In this review,we present a brief introduction of microfluidic chips,and three microfluidic chipsbased islet hormone sensing techniques.We focus mainly on the theory of these techniques,and provide detailed examples based on these theories with the hope of providing some insights into the design of future chips or whole detection systems.

Wave-shaped microfluidic chip assisted point-of-care testing for accurate and rapid diagnosis of infections

Background:Early diagnosis and classification of infections increase the cure rate while decreasing complications,which is significant for severe infections,especially for war surgery.However,traditional methods rely on laborious operations and bulky devices.On the other hand,point-of-care(POC)methods suffer from limited robustness and accuracy.Therefore,it is of urgent demand to develop POC devices for rapid and accurate diagnosis of infections to fulfill on-site militarized requirements.Methods:We developed a wave-shaped microfluidic chip(WMC)assisted multiplexed detection platform(WMC-MDP).WMC-MDP reduces detection time and improves repeatability through premixing of the samples and reaction of the reagents.We further combined the detection platform with the streptavidin–biotin(SA-B)amplified system to enhance the sensitivity while using chemiluminescence(CL)intensity as signal readout.We realized simultaneous detection of C-reactive protein(CRP),procalcitonin(PCT),and interleukin-6(IL-6)on the detection platform and evaluated the sensitivity,linear range,selectivity,and repeatability.Finally,we finished detecting 15 samples from volunteers and compared the results with commercial ELISA kits.Results:Detection of CRP,PCT,and IL-6 exhibited good linear relationships between CL intensities and concentrations in the range of 1.25–40μg/ml,0.4–12.8 ng/ml,and 50–1600 pg/ml,respectively.The limit of detection of CRP,PCT,and IL-6 were 0.54μg/ml,0.11 ng/ml,and 16.25 pg/ml,respectively.WMC-MDP is capable of good adequate selectivity and repeatability.The whole detection procedure takes only 22 min that meets the requirements of a POC device.Results of 15 samples from volunteers were consistent with the results detected by commercial ELISA kits.Conclusions:WMC-MDP allows simultaneous,rapid,and sensitive detection of CRP,PCT,and IL-6 with satisfactory selectivity and repeatability,requiring minimal manipulation.However,WMC-MDP takes advantage of being a microfluidic device showing the coefficients of variation less than 10%enabling WMC-MDP to be a type of point-of-care testing(POCT).Therefore,WMC-MDP provides a promising alternative to POCT of multiple biomarkers.We believe the practical application of WMC-MDP in militarized fields will revolutionize infection diagnosis for soldiers.

Identifying EGFR-Expressed Cells and Detecting EGFR Multi-Mutations at Single-Cell Level by Microfluidic Chip

EGFR mutations companion diagnostics have been proved to be crucial for the efficacy of tyrosine kinase inhibitor targeted cancer therapies. To uncover multiple mutations occurred in minority of EGFR-mutated cells,which may be covered by the noises from majority of unmutated cells, is currently becoming an urgent clinical requirement. Here we present the validation of a microfluidic-chip-based method for detecting EGFR multimutations at single-cell level. By trapping and immunofluorescently imaging single cells in specifically designed silicon microwells, the EGFR-expressed cellswere easily identified. By in situ lysing single cells, the cell lysates of EGFR-expressed cells were retrieved without cross-contamination. Benefited from excluding the noise from cells without EGFR expression, the simple and cost-effective Sanger's sequencing, but not the expensive deep sequencing of the whole cell population, was used to discover multi-mutations. We verified the new method with precisely discovering three most important EGFR drugrelated mutations from a sample in which EGFR-mutated cells only account for a small percentage of whole cell population. The microfluidic chip is capable of discovering not only the existence of specific EGFR multi-mutations,but also other valuable single-cell-level information: on which specific cells the mutations occurred, or whether different mutations coexist on the same cells. This microfluidic chip constitutes a promising method to promote simple and cost-effective Sanger's sequencing to be a routine test before performing targeted cancer therapy.

Microfluidic chips for the endothelial biomechanics and mechanobiology of the vascular system

Endothelial cells arranged on the vessel lumen are constantly stimulated by blood flow,blood pressure and pressureinduced cyclic stretch.These stimuli are sensed through mechanical sensory structures and converted into a series of functional responses through mechanotransduction pathways.The process will eventually affect vascular health.Therefore,there has been an urgent need to establish in vitro endothelial biomechanics and mechanobiology of models,which reproduce three-dimensional structure vascular system.In recent years,the rapid development in microfluidic technology makes it possible to replicate the key structural and functionally biomechanical characteristics of vessels.Here,we summarized the progress of microfluidic chips used for the investigation of endothelial biomechanics and mechanobiology of the vascular system.Firstly,we elucidated the contribution of shear stress and circumferential stress,to vascular physiology.Then,we reviewed some applications using microfluidic technology in angiogenesis and vasculogenesis,endothelial permeability and mechanotransduction,as well as the blood-brain barrier under these physical forces.Finally,we discussed the future obstacles in terms of the development and application of microfluidic vascular chips.

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE HOT EMBOSSING POLYMER MICROFLUIDIC CHIP

Experiments are used to study the fabrication of polymer microfluidic chip with hot embossing method. The pattern fidelity with respect to the process parameters is analyzed. Experiment results show that the relationship between the imprint temperature and the microchannel width is approximately exponential. However, the depth of micro channel isn＇t sensitive to the imprint temperature. When the imprint pressure is larger than 1 MPa and the imprint time is longer than 2 min, the increasing of imprint pressure and holding time has little impact on the microchannel width. So over long holding time is not needed in hot embossing. Based on the experiment analysis, a series of optimization process parameters is obtained and a fine microfluidic chip is fabricated. The electrophoresis separation experiment are used to verify the microfluidic chip performance after bonding. The results show that 100bp-ladder DNA sample can be separated in less than 5 min successfully.

MODELING OF LASER MACHINING ON POLYMETHYL METHACRYLATE TO FABRICATE MICROFLUIDIC CHIP

The use of a CO2 laser system for fabrication of microfluidic chip on polymethyl methacrylate （PMMA） is presented to reduce fabrication cost and time of chip. The grooving process of the laser system and a model for the depth of microchannels are investigated. The relations between the depth of laser-cut channels and the laser beam power, velocity or the number of passes of the beam along the same channel are evaluated. In the experiments, the laser beam power varies from 0 to 50 W, the laser beam scanning velocity varies from 0 to 1 000 mm/s and the passes vary in the range of 1 to 10 times. Based on the principle of conservation of energy, the influence of the laser beam velocity, the laser power and the number of groove passes are examine. Considering the grooving interval energy loss, a modified mathematical model has been obtained and experimental data show good agreement with the theoretical model. This approach provides a simple way of predicting groove depths. The system provides a cost alternative of the other methods and it is especially useful on research work of rnicrofluidic prototyping due to the short cycle time of production.

Label-free trace detection of bio-molecules by liquid-interface assisted surface-enhanced Raman scattering using a microfluidic chip

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering(SERS),owing to its high sensitivity based on localized surface plasmon resonance of nanostructured metals,is recently attracting much attention to be used for biotechnology,such as cell imaging and tumor therapy.On the other hand,the trace detection of bio-molecules with large molecular weight is still challenging because the troublesome treatment of SERS substrate using coupling or cross-linking agents is required.In this paper,we apply liquid interface assisted SERS(LI-SERS)method,which provides unique features of collection and self-immobilization of analyte molecules on the SERS substrate,to realize the label-free trace detection of bio-molecules with detection limits of pM~fM.Specifically,deoxyribonucleic acid(DNA)discrimination and quantitative detection ofβ-Amyloid(Aβ)in trace-concentration are demonstrated to illustrate the ultrahigh sensitivity and versatility of the LI-SERS method.The results suggest LI-SERS is promising for the early-stage diagnosis of diseases such as virus infection and Alzheimer's disease.

Integrated Carbon Nanotubes Electrodes in Microfluidic Chip via MWPCVD

An on-chip electrochemical detector for microfluidic chips was described, based on integrated carbon nanotube （CNT） electrodes directly onto the chip substrate through microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition （MWPCVD）. The attractive performance of the integrated CNT electrodes was demonstrated for the amperometric detection of sucrose, glucose and D-fructose. The integrated CNT electrodes showed stronger electrocatalytic activity than gold electrodes.

Experiments on imbibition mechanisms of fractured reservoirs by microfluidic chips

To solve the problems of long experiment period and difficult measurement in core imbibition experiments,fracture-matrix microfluidic chips of different sizes,boundary conditions and wettability regulated by surface property modification were designed to research the imbibition mechanisms of oil-water,oil-surfactant solution and oil-WinsorⅢtype surfactant solution.In the oil-water,and oil-wettability modification system imbibition process,oil was replaced from the matrix through Haines jump,the capillary back pressure was the main resistance blocking the flow of oil,the reduction of interfacial tension caused the weakening of Haines jump,reduction of oil discharge rate,and increase of oil recovery.The imbibition of oil-water or oil-surfactant solution with low interfacial tension was a counter-current imbibition process dominated by capillary force,in which all boundaries had similar contribution to imbibition,and the recovery data obtained from this experiment fit well with the classic imbibition scaling equation.The imbibition of oil and Winsor III type surfactant solution was a co-current imbibition process dominated by gravity under super-low interfacial tension,and is essentially the formation and re-balance of neutral microemulsion.The imbibition dynamics obtained from this experiment fit well with the modified imbibition scaling equation.

PRESSURE FORCE CONTROL FOR FABRICATION OF PLASTIC MICROFLUIDIC CHIPS WITH HOT EMBOSSING METHOD

A pressure force control system for hot embossing of microfluidic chips is designed with a moment motor and a ball bearing lead screw. Based on the numeric PID technique, the algorithm of pulsant integral accelerated PID control is presented and the negative effects of nonlinearity from friction, clearance and saturation are eliminated. In order to improve the quick-resixmse characteristic, independent thread technique is adopted. The method of pressure force control based on pulsant integral accelerated PID control and independent thread technique is applied with satisfactory control performance.

A lateral-immobilization zebrafish microfluidic chip-based system for in vivo real-time evaluation of antithrombotic agents

Thrombosis remains a major global health concern mainly characterized by high rates of morbidity and mortality.Animal models serve as an indispensable tool to understand the underlying pathogenesis of thrombosis and assess the efficacy of novel antithrombotic drugs.Currently,zebrafish has emerged as a valuable model organism for thrombosis research.However,the traditional method of studying zebrafish thrombosis requires a laborious and time-consuming procedure,including anesthesia and manual immobilization of zebrafish.In this study,based on hydrodynamic force,a lateral-immobilization zebrafish microfluidic chip(LIZMC)was designed to evaluate the cardiovascular system of multiple larvae within a single microscope field of view.Specifically,coupling with microscope imaging,real-time monitoring of the peripheral blood circulation in the tail of phenylhydrazine(PHZ)-induced zebrafish thrombosis was enabled.Furthermore,the reliability of LIZMC for in vivo evaluation of antithrombotic agents in zebrafish was verified using aspirin.Collectively,this novel LIZMC-based system can be used for in vivo zebrafish thrombosis studies and rapid screening of antithrombotic agents.

A portable viable Salmonella detection device based on microfluidic chip and recombinase aided amplification

creening of foodborne pathogens is important to prevent contaminated foods from their supply chains.n this study, a portable detection device was developed for rapid, sensitive and simple detection of viable almonella using a finger-actuated microfluidic chip and an improved recombinase aided amplification (RAA) assay. Improved propidium monoazide(PMAxx) was combined with RAA to enable this device to distinguish viable bacteria from dead ones. The modification of PMAxx into dead bacteria, the magnetic xtraction of nucleic acids from viable bacteria and the RAA detection of extracted nucleic acids were performed using the microfluidic chip on its supporting device by finger press-release operations. The fluorescent signal resulting from RAA amplification of the nucleic acids was collected using a USB camera nd analyzed using a self-developed smartphone App to quantitatively determine the bacterial concenration. This device could detect Salmonella typhimurium in spiked chicken meats from 1.3 × 10^(2) CFU/m L o 1.3 × 10^(7) CFU/m L in 2 h with a lower detection limit of 130 CFU/m L, and has shown its potential for on-site detection of foodborne pathogens.

Highly efficient synthesis and application of aryl diazonium salts via femtosecond laser-tailored 3D flow microfluidic chips

The first example of the microfluidic chips(MFCs) consisting of centimeter-level 3D channels with highdensity and large-volume fabricated by femtosecond laser micromachining were utilized to develop a time-saving, economical and hazardless flow synthesis process, and its advantages have been proved by in situ formation of aryldiazonium salts and subsequent borylation with bis(pinacolato)diboron. There are several important advantages in our 3D MFC-based flow synthesis technology, including the following:(1) the reaction temperature was altered from ice bath to room temperature;(2) the residence time was reduced by 10 times;(3) the yield was greatly improved, that is, several arylboronates were successfully obtained with higher yield compared to traditional batch process. Therefore, it can be envisioned that a novel, simplified flow synthetic protocol will be developed toward green organic synthesis via MFCs.

Femtosecond laser-engineered 3D microfluidic chips: Synthesis system sprouting highly efficient multiphase organic reactions

Recent developments in the utilization of microfluidic chips(MFCs) have shown their potential utility in multiphase organic synthesis by enabling efficient organic reactions in flow chemistry. However, MFCs technology has been wandering in the laboratory of small dose synthetic routes, which is limited to the level of "tiny" fluid flux. To address this issue, we herein report the first case of the chips with highthroughput 3D channels produced by femtosecond laser being used to create a time-saving, cost-effective and risk-free approach suitable for large-scale flow synthesis. Several multiphase reactions have been successfully prepared on demand in our designed flow synthesis system containing 3D MFCs: 1) benzyl alcohol was converted to benzaldehyde in 3 min with a yield of 97.50% by liquid-liquid two-phase transfer catalytic oxidation;2) organozinc reagents and α-cyano carbonyl carbon compounds were synthesized by solid-liquid two-phase metal insertion reaction in 7 min, and the yield was up to 100%;3) benzoic acid was synthesized by gas-liquid two-phase carboxylation reaction in 2.8 s with a yield of 96%. Significant gains in production rate result from the effective scaling of flow reactors from microliters per hour in MFCs to intermediate milliliters per minute without affecting mass transport performance. Meanwhile,our 3D MFCs show excellent mass and heat transfer efficiency in large-scale industrial units, breaking through the bottleneck in this field. As a result, it is possible to imagine the creation of a new, streamlined flow synthetic technique via MFCs for green multiphase organic synthesis.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering technology based on TiO_(2)/Nb_(2)C coated microfluidic chip for monitoring glioma cells invasion in real time

Glioma is a malignant primary brain tumor that is extremely harmful to human beings.Therefore,studying the invasiveness of glioma cells is of great significance for the diagnosis and treatment of glioma.In this work,TiO_(2)/Nb_(2)C was prepared as a SERS substrate and combined with microfluidic chip to construct an invasion model capable of monitoring glioma invasion in real time.Both experimental data and density function theory(DFT)calculations showed that the significant SERS-enhancing effect of TiO_(2)/Nb_(2)C on methylene blue(MB)originated from the chemical magnification(CM)mechanism when MB was used as the adsorbed molecule.Based on this,we achieved a highly sensitive and targeted detection of vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF),a biomarker for glioma with a low detection limit of 3.7 pg/m L,then quantified the invasive process in real time by detecting VEGF.Meanwhile,the depletion of reactive oxygen species(ROS)by TiO_(2)/Nb_(2)C can inhibit the invasion of glioma cells.For the first time,the invasion model combines SERS technology with microfluidic technology,while monitoring the cell invasion process in real time,the invasion process can be quantified by detecting the VEGF secreted by glioma cells during the invasion process,realizing the integration of diagnosis and treatment,and establish a new model for the biomedical analysis,clinical diagnosis and treatment of glioma.

Fabrication of a hydroxyapatite-PDMS microfluidic chip for bone-related cell culture and drug screening

Bone is an important part of the human body structure and plays a vital role in human health.A microfluidic chip that can simulate the structure and function of bone will provide a platform for bone-related biomedical research.Hydroxyapatite(HA),a bioactive ceramic material,has a similar structure and composition to bone mineralization products.In this study,we used HA as a microfluidic chip component to provide a highly bionic bone environment.HA substrates with different microchannel structures were printed by using ceramic stereolithography(SLA)technology,and the minimum trench width was 50μm.The HA substrate with microchannels was sealed by a thin polydimethylsiloxane(PDMS)layer to make a HA-PDMS microfluidic chip.Cell culture experiments demonstrated that compared with PDMS,HA was more conducive to the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of the human foetal osteoblast cell line(hFOB).In addition,the concentration gradient of the model drug doxorubicin hydrochloride(DOX)was successfully generated on a Christmas tree structure HA-PDMS chip,and the half maximal inhibitory concentration(IC50)of DOX was determined.The findings of this study indicate that the HA-PDMS microfluidic chip has great potential in the field of high-throughput bonerelated drug screening and bone-related research.

Separation-enrichment method for airborne disease spores based on microfluidic chip

Airborne diseases are likely to cause crop yield reduction,which has aroused widespread concern.In this study,a two-stage separation-enrichment structure microfluidic chip with a compound field for separation and enrichment of the greenhouse crops airborne disease spores directly from gas flow was developed.The chip is mainly composed of three parts:arc structure pretreatment channel,semicircular electrode structure and collection tank.COMSOL 5.1 software was used to simulate the designed microfluidic chip.30μm particles were used to represent P.xanthii spores,25μm particles were used to represent P.cubensis spores,and 16μm particles were used to represent B.cinerea spores.The simulation results showed that the separation and enrichment efficiency of 16μm particles,25μm particles,and 30μm particles was 88%,91%,and 94%,respectively.The experimental verification results were observed under a microscope.The results showed that the separation and enrichment efficiency of B.cinereal spores,P.cubensis spores and P.xanthii spores was 75.7%,83.8%and 89.4%,respectively.As a result,the designed microfluidic chip can be used to separate and enrich the spores of airborne diseases of greenhouse crops,which can provide a basis for the research of real-time monitoring technology for greenhouse airborne diseases.