title: Centrifugal micro-channel array droplet generation for highly parallel digital PCR.
abstract: Stable water-in-oil emulsion is essential to digital PCR and many other bioanalytical reactions that employ droplets as microreactors. We developed a novel technology to produce monodisperse emulsion droplets with high efficiency and high throughput using a bench-top centrifuge. Upon centrifugal spinning, the continuous aqueous phase is dispersed into monodisperse droplet jets in air through a micro-channel array (MiCA) and then submerged into oil as a stable emulsion. We performed dPCR reactions with a high dynamic range through the MiCA approach, and demonstrated that this cost-effective method not only eliminates the usage of complex microfluidic devices and control systems, but also greatly suppresses the loss of materials and cross-contamination. MiCA-enabled highly parallel emulsion generation combines both easiness and robustness of picoliter droplet production, and breaks the technical challenges by using conventional lab equipment and supplies.
authors.affiliation: Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC), Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG), Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, and College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China. yanyi@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zitian
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC), Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG), Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, and College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China. yanyi@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Peiyu
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.affiliation: Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC), Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG), Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, and College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China. yanyi@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Fangli
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC), Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG), Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, and College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China. yanyi@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Mengcheng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Integrated Science Program, Yuanpei College, Peking University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yusen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC), Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG), Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, and College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China. yanyi@pku.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yanyi
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7297-1266
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D002498:Centrifugation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D056656:Lab-On-A-Chip Devices; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000295:instrumentation*