Cell Culture in Microfluidic Droplets

Abstract

Cell manipulation in droplets has emerged as one of the great successes of microfluidic technologies, with the development of single-cell screening. However, the droplet format has also served to go beyond single-cell studies, namely by considering the interactions between different cells or between cells and their physical or chemical environment. These studies pose specific challenges linked to the need for long-term culture of adherent cells or the diverse types of measurements associated with complex biological phenomena. Here we review the emergence of droplet microfluidic methods for culturing cells and studying their interactions. We begin by characterizing the quantitative aspects that determine the ability to encapsulate cells, transport molecules, and provide sufficient nutrients within the droplets. This is followed by an evaluation of the biological constraints such as the control of the biochemical environment and promoting the anchorage of adherent cells. This first part ends with a description of measurement methods that have been developed. The second part of the manuscript focuses on applications of these technologies for cancer studies, immunology, and stem cells while paying special attention to the biological relevance of the cellular assays and providing guidelines on improving this relevance.

Progress in the application of sustained-release drug microspheres in tissue engineering

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Combinatorial perturbation sequencing on single cells using microwell-based droplet random pairing

“…Though cell culture in droplets has been well studied, 24 corona treatment is a less standard operation. Corona treatment generates an instant but strong electric potential, which may impose disturbance on the gene expression of the cells.…”

Terahertz refractive phenotype of living cells

“…Specifically, the cell samples were encapsulated one by one in aqueous droplets constructed by the self-assemble phospholipids ( Yang et al, 2019 ; Tang et al, 2021 ; Tang et al, 2022 ). The cellular encapsulation provides not only a liquid environment for keeping cellular viability ( Sart et al, 2022 ) but also allows for eliminating the strong adsorption of solvent water to THz signal ( Weisenstein et al, 2021 ). Due to the droplets, consisting of the cells and a little confined water around, are surrounded by reagents with high transmittance in THz region, the signal attenuation of the sample mainly attributes to the adsorption of intracellular water.…”