Microfluidic tools toward industrial biotechnology

Abstract

Microfluidics is a technology that operates with small amounts of fluids and makes possible the investigation of cells, enzymes, and biomolecules and encapsulation of biocatalysts in a greater variety of conditions than permitted using conventional methods. This review discusses technological possibilities that can be applied in the field of industrial biotechnology, presenting the principal definitions and fundamental aspects of microfluidic parameters to better understand advanced approaches. Specifically, concentration gradient generators, droplet-based microfluidics, and microbioreactors are explored as useful tools that can contribute to industrial biotechnology. These tools present potential applications, inclusive as commercial platforms to optimizing in bioprocesses development as screening cells, encapsulating biocatalysts, and determining critical kinetic parameters. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 32:1372-1389, 2016.

Heterogeneity in Pure Microbial Systems: Experimental Measurements and Modeling

“…A complementary way to evaluate the microbial phenotypic heterogeneity under realistic bioprocess conditions is by employing scale down single cell micro-cultivation devices in which large scale reactors conditions are mimicked. Single cells in lab-on-a-chip microfluidic devices allow parallelization and high throughput experiments ( Grünberger et al, 2014 ; Dusny and Schmid, 2015 ; Rosenthal et al, 2015 ; Oliveira et al, 2016 ), contributing to large-scale bioprocess improvement ( Grünberger et al, 2012 ; Ladner et al, 2017 ). Sorting of different subpopulations of cells in order to understand the physiological responses in fluctuating microenvironments was also performed by microarray analysis ( Hewitt et al, 2007 ).…”

From industrial fermentor to CFD-guided downscaling: what have we learned?

“…Microfluidic devices allow to conduct small-population or even single-cell cultivation. They have been applied to study growth under controlled conditions [72][73][74][75][76], and to study enzyme dynamics during slow extra-cellular variations [77,78], but not to impose rapid fluctuations (to our knowledge). Convective flow can renew volumes in less than a second in typical micro-cultivations, and with a diffusion coefficient = × − 6 10 m /s…”

Microbioreactors as Engineering Tools for Bioprocess Development

“…Regarding the applications of microbioreactors within industrial bioprocesses and fermentations, such results thus indicate the great potential of an unexplored research field. Furthermore, Oliveira et al (2016) carried out an analogous search concerning microfluidic approaches. Their study reported the availability of untouched possibilities for research not only for the application of microbioreactors in bioprocesses but also the general approaches of microfluidics in industrial biotechnology.…”

“…Their study reported the availability of untouched possibilities for research not only for the application of microbioreactors in bioprocesses but also the general approaches of microfluidics in industrial biotechnology. Regardless of the rapid growth of this field of study, microfluidics has been a subject of concern from specific engineering journals, denouncing the complexity found when applying such technology to various other fields of study or handled by non-experts (Oliveira et al, 2016).…”