Electroporation of cells in microfluidic droplets.
Droplet-based microfluidics has raised a lot of interest recently due to its wide applications to screening biological/chemical assays with high throughput. Despite the advances on droplet-based assays involving cells, gene delivery methods that are compatible with the droplet platform have been lacking. In this report, we demonstrate a simple microfluidic device that encapsulates cells into aqueous droplets and then electroporates the encapsulated cells. The electroporation occurs when the cell-containing droplets (in oil) flow through a pair of microelectrodes with a constant voltage established in between. We investigate the parameters and characteristics of the electroporation. We demonstrate delivering enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) plasmid into Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. We envision the application of this technique to high-throughput functional genomics studies based on droplet microfluidics.
Zhan
Yihong
Y
Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA.
Wang
Jun
J
Bao
Ning
N
Lu
Chang
C
D000818:Animals; D016466:CHO Cells; D002469:Cell Separation / Q000379:methods; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000502:physiology; D006224:Cricetinae; D003412:Cricetulus; D004563:Electrochemistry; D018274:Electroporation / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000379:methods*
D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins