Jet‐Printing Microfluidic Devices on Demand

Soitu, Cristian; Stovall-Kurtz, Nicholas; Deroy, Cyril; Castrejón‐Pita, Alfonso A.; Cook, Peter R.; Walsh, Edmond J.

doi:10.1002/advs.202001854

Cited by 25 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Note that the passage of an FC40 jet not only clears cells from the target area, but also leaves a column of FC40 droplets down the centerline of the wound [ Fig. 2(a) ii; Soitu et al , 17 describe a related phenomenon]. This presumably arises as follows.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating wounds in cell monolayers using micro-jets

et al. 2021

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Many wound-healing assays are used in cell biology and biomedicine; they are often labor intensive and/or require specialized and costly equipment. We describe a contactless method to create wounds with any imaginable 2D pattern in cell monolayers using the micro-jets of either media or an immiscible and biocompatible fluorocarbon (i.e., FC40). We also combine this with another method that allows automation and multiplexing using standard Petri dishes. A dish is filled with a thin film of media overlaid with FC40, and the two liquids are reshaped into an array of microchambers within minutes. Each chamber in such a grid is isolated from others by the fluid walls of FC40. Cells are now added, allowed to grow into a monolayer, and wounds are created using the microjets; then, healing is monitored by microscopy. As arrays of chambers can be made using media and Petri dishes familiar to biologists, and as dishes fit seamlessly into their incubators, microscopes, and workflows, we anticipate that this assay will find wide application in wound healing.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating wounds in cell monolayers using micro-jets

et al. 2021

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“…Soon after printing, pressure inside these circuits equilibrates causing the flow to cease. While we print these circuits by infusing medium through a needle, they can also be fabricated using a stylus or a micro-jet [11], [12].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, RNA sequencing could be applied to identify which transcripts increase in number in a chemotactic sub-population. Moreover, as techniques exist to build fluid walls with sufficient accuracy to isolate single cells [4],[12], the methodology outlined here could even be applied with single-cell transcriptomics. In this way, our method greatly increases the range of analytical methods that can be combined with microfluidic experiments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconfigurable microfluidic circuits for isolating and retrieving cells of interest

Deroy

Wheeler

Rumianek

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Microfluidic devices are widely used in many fields of biology, but a key limitation is that cells are typically surrounded by solid walls, making it hard to access those that exhibit a specific phenotype for further study. Here, we provide a general and flexible solution to this problem that exploits the remarkable properties of microfluidic circuits with fluid walls - transparent interfaces between culture media and an immiscible fluorocarbon that are easily pierced with pipets. We provide two proofs-of-concept in which specific cell sub-populations are isolated and recovered: i) murine macrophages chemotaxing towards complement component 5a, and ii) bacteria (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) in developing biofilms that migrate towards antibiotics. We build circuits in minutes on standard Petri dishes, add cells, pump in laminar streams so molecular diffusion creates attractant gradients, acquire time-lapse images, and isolate desired sub-populations in real-time by building fluid walls around migrating cells with an accuracy of tens of micrometres using 3D-printed adaptors that convert conventional microscopes into wall-building machines. Our method allows live cells of interest to be easily extracted from microfluidic devices for downstream analyses.

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“…Furthermore, in contrast to prior systems, 20,21 the carrier fluid used to generate and transport droplets in our system (HFE fluorinated oil) is commonly used for biological applications of droplet microfluidics, thus making our open droplet system compatible for biological experiments. 2,5,7,8,24,25 The work of Soitu et al [26][27][28][29] and Li et al [30][31][32][33] highlighted the importance of manipulations of droplets for cell biology in their open systems where droplets were formed under an immiscible phase by segmenting aqueous solution with a physical stylus and simple pipetting. Our work is complementary to these two methods because our droplets are selfgenerating in an open system where they can then be manipulated for biological applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interfacial tension driven open droplet microfluidics

Khor

Lee

Theberge

2021

Preprint

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We developed an open channel droplet microfluidics system that autonomously generates droplets by utilizing competing hydrostatic and capillary pressure. With only our open channel PTFE device, pipettes, and commercially available carrier fluid, we produce hundreds of microliter droplets; tubing, electronics, or pumps are not required, making droplet technology feasible for research labs without external flow generators. Furthermore, we demonstrated conceptual applications that showcase the process of droplet generation, splitting, transport, incubation, mixing, and sorting in our system. Unlike conventional droplet microfluidics, the open nature of the device enables the use of physical tools such as tweezers and styli to directly access the system; with this, we developed a new method of droplet sorting and transfer that capitalizes on the Cheerios effect, the aggregation of buoyant objects along a liquid interface. Our open channel platform offers enhanced usability, direct access to the droplet contents, easy manufacturability, compact footprint, and high customizability.

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Jet‐Printing Microfluidic Devices on Demand

Cited by 25 publications

References 27 publications

Creating wounds in cell monolayers using micro-jets

Creating wounds in cell monolayers using micro-jets

Reconfigurable microfluidic circuits for isolating and retrieving cells of interest

Interfacial tension driven open droplet microfluidics

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