A Microfluidic Platform for Long-Term Monitoring of Algae in a Dynamic Environment.
Culturing cells in microfluidic "lab-on-a-chip" devices for time lapse microscopy has become a valuable tool for studying the dynamics of biological systems. Although microfluidic technology has been applied to culturing and monitoring a diverse range of bacterial and eukaryotic species, cyanobacteria and eukaryotic microalgae present several challenges that have made them difficult to culture in a microfluidic setting. Here, we present a customizable device for the long-term culturing and imaging of three well characterized strains of cyanobacteria and microalgae. This platform has several advantages over agarose pads and demonstrates great potential for obtaining high quality, single-cell gene expression data of cyanobacteria and algae in precisely controlled, dynamic environments over long time periods.
Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
Chung Sze
CS
Luke
Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
Jangir
J
Selimkhanov
Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
Leo
L
Baumgart
Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.|Center for Circadian Biology, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
Susan E
SE
Cohen
Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.|Center for Circadian Biology, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
Susan S
SS
Golden
BioCircuits Institute, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
Natalie A
NA
Cookson
Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.|Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.|BioCircuits Institute, University of California, San Diego , La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
Jeff
J
Hasty
D000465:Algorithms; D058948:Cell Tracking; D002734:Chlorophyll / Q000378:metabolism; D004777:Environment; D005453:Fluorescence; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D046939:Synechocystis / Q000378:metabolism*; D059008:Time-Lapse Imaging
D002734:Chlorophyll
Chlorella; Synechococcus; Synechocystis; cyanobacteria; dynamics; microfluidics