Droplet Microfluidics for Screening of Surface-Marker and Secretory Protein Expression

Abstract

Current techniques of biomarker detection employ population-based studies, which fail to provide information on cellular and molecular heterogeneity and variances in functional behavior, which is important for diseased state characterization. Additionally, low concentration of samples in biological fluids creates hurdles in detection using these methods. Thus, improvement in detection techniques of clinical biomarkers has become imperative to halt disease progression at the earliest possible stage. Droplet microfluidics has become quite popular as a diagnostic platform due to its ability to sensitively detect low volume of clinical samples in a rapid and high-throughput manner. These advantages make the droplets an ideal platform for low-abundance biomarker detection. This chapter focuses on various techniques for detection of surface and secreted protein biomarkers using droplet microfluidics platform.