Practical, microfabrication-free device for single-cell isolation

Microfabricated devices have great potential in cell-level studies, but are not easily accessible for the broad biology community. This paper introduces the Microscale Oil-Covered Cell Array (MOCCA) as a low-cost device for high throughput single-cell analysis that can be easily produced by research...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2009-08, Vol.4 (8), p.e6710-e6710
Main Authors: Lin, Liang-I, Chao, Shih-Hui, Meldrum, Deirdre R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automation
Bacteria
Biosensors
Biotechnology/Applied Microbiology
Cell Biology
Cells
Chemistry/Physical, Inorganic, and Analytical Chemistry
Contact angle
Cost analysis
Droplets
E coli
Escherichia coli
Fabrication
Gene expression
Glass substrates
Hydrophobicity
Leptomitales
Microbiology/Applied Microbiology
Microengineering
Microscopy
Plasma
Poisson Distribution
Protein expression
Proteins
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Summary:Microfabricated devices have great potential in cell-level studies, but are not easily accessible for the broad biology community. This paper introduces the Microscale Oil-Covered Cell Array (MOCCA) as a low-cost device for high throughput single-cell analysis that can be easily produced by researchers without microengineering knowledge. Instead of using microfabricated structures to capture cells, MOCCA isolates cells in discrete aqueous droplets that are separated by oil on patterned hydrophilic areas across a relatively more hydrophobic substrate. The number of randomly seeded Escherichia coli bacteria in each discrete droplet approaches single-cell levels. The cell distribution on MOCCA is well-fit with Poisson distribution. In this pioneer study, we created an array of 900-picoliter droplets. The total time needed to seed cells in approximately 3000 droplets was less than 10 minutes. Compared to traditional microfabrication techniques, MOCCA dramatically lowers the cost of microscale cell arrays, yet enhances the fabrication and operational efficiency for single-cell analysis.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0006710