Search

Droplet microfluidics is a rapidly advancing area of microfluidic technology, which offers numerous advantages for cell analysis, such as isolation and accumulation of signals, by confining cells within droplets. However, controlling cell numbers in droplets is challenging due to the uncertainty of random encapsulation which result in many empty droplets. Therefore, more precise control techniques are needed to achieve efficient encapsulation of cells within droplets. Here, an innovative microfluidic droplet manipulation platform had been developed, which employed positive pressure as a stable and controllable driving force for manipulating fluid within chips. The air cylinder, electro-pneumatics proportional valve, and the microfluidic chip were connected through a capillary, which enabled the formation of a fluid wall by creating a difference in hydrodynamic resistance between two fluid streams at the channel junction. Lowering the pressure of the driving oil phase eliminates hydrodynamic resistance and breaks the fluid wall. Regulating the duration of the fluid wall breakage controls the volume of the introduced fluid. Several important droplet microfluidic manipulations were demonstrated on this microfluidic platform, such as sorting of cells/droplets, sorting of droplets co-encapsulated cells and hydrogels, and active generation of droplets encapsulated with cells in a responsive manner. The simple, on-demand microfluidic platform was featured with high stability, good controllability, and compatibility with other droplet microfluidic technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rapid and sensitive N-glycan profiling strategy for MALDI-MS incorporating the use of deglycosylation with microwave assistance and the co-derivatization of glycosylamine labeling with tris(2,4,6-trimethoxyphenyl)phosphonium acetic acid N-hydroxysuccinimide ester (TMPP-Ac-OSu) and methylamidation has been developed in this work. Notably, highly efficient release and tagging of N-glycans from ribonuclease B was achieved in less than 90 min, providing up to 35-fold enhancement of MALDI-MS sensitivity with comparison to underivatized N-glycans. After further validation with other two standard glycoproteins (ovalbumin and bovine fetuin), the proposed strategy was applied to human serum for preliminary pathological analysis of N-glycans between healthy and lung cancer individuals. As a result, significant differences ( T test p value <0.01) of 6 glycan structures were determined from 54 detected N-glycan structures with only 50 nL of loading amount and further confirmed through PCA and ROC (AUC) analyses between two sample sets. Subsequently, the trend of each lung cancer stage and controls in expression of the selected glycans was implemented with T test and box-plots. Accordingly, these structures can be used as potential lung cancer glycan-based biomarkers and for further definition of cancer progression highlighting the ability of proposed method to rapidly and efficiently analyze N-glycome present in human serum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital single-cell assays hold high potentials for the analysis of cell apoptosis and the evaluation of chemotherapeutic reagents for cancer therapy. In this paper, a microfluidic hydrodynamic trapping system was developed for digital single-cell assays with the capability of monitoring cellular dynamics over time. The microfluidic chip was designed with arrays of bypass structures for trapping individual cells without the need for surface modification, external electric force, or robotic equipment. After optimization of the bypass structure by both numerical simulations and experiments, a single-cell trapping efficiency of ∼90 % was achieved. We demonstrated the method as a digital single-cell assay for the evaluation of five clinically established chemotherapeutic reagents. As a result, the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC) values of these compounds could be conveniently determined. We further modeled the gradual decrease of active drugs over time which was often observed in vivo after an injection to investigate cell apoptosis against chemotherapeutic reagents. The developed method provided a valuable means for cell apoptotic analysis and evaluation of anticancer drugs. [Figure not available: see fulltext.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) has been a major approach for glycan analysis. However, the preferential cleavage of the sialic acid moiety by in- and post-source decay influences the determination of sialylated glycans by MALDI-MS. Many chemical derivatization methods were introduced to stabilize the sialylated glycan during MALDI-MS. Among current derivatization methods, methylamidation is a promising means for simultaneous analysis of natural sialylated glycans regardless of their sialic acid linkage types. Here, a novel derivatization method was developed, in which proteins were conjugated on the solid-phase support in order to stabilize the sialic acids by methylamidation and to reduce sample loss and contamination during the derivatization process. This derivatization strategy was used to investigate N-glycans from fetuin, a glycoprotein containing different types of complex N-glycans. The developed method was also applied to the N-glycan profiling of human serum from patients and healthy volunteers. Results were consistent with N-glycan profiling by HPLC-fluorescence detection. This new method provided a sensitive, simple, and robust approach for profiling glycan structures of complex samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the maturation of microfluidic technologies, microchip electrophoresis has been widely employed for amino acid analysis owing to its advantages of low sample consumption, reduced analysis time, high throughput, and potential for integration and automation. In this article, we review the recent progress in amino acid analysis using microchip electrophoresis during the period from 2007 to 2012. Innovations in microchip materials, surface modification, sample introduction, microchip electrophoresis, and detection methods are documented, as well as nascent applications of amino acid analysis in single-cell analysis, microdialysis sampling, food analysis, and extraterrestrial exploration. Without doubt, more applications of microchip electrophoresis in amino acid analysis may be expected soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kinases play a key role in cellular signaling, and the overactivation or overexpression of these kinases has been linked to a variety of cancers. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors treat the mechanism of these cancers by targeting the specific kinases that are overactive. Some patients, however, do not respond to these inhibitors or develop resistance to these inhibitors during treatment. Additionally, even within cancers of the same tissue type, different kinases may be overactive in different patients. For example, some lung cancers overexpress epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and respond to EGFR inhibitors, whereas other lung cancers do not overexpress EGFR and receive no benefit from this treatment. Even among patients exhibiting EGFR overexpression, some do not respond to EGFR kinase inhibitors because other kinases, such as Met kinase, are also overactivated. Here we describe a quantitative and specific multiplexed microfluidic assay using a hydrogel immobilized substrate for measuring the kinase activity of Met and Abl kinase from cancer cells. We immobilized kinase-specific substrates on macroporous hydrogel micropillars in microchannels. These microchannels were incubated with 6 μl of a kinase reaction solution containing cancer cell lysate, and we measured kinase activity via fluorescence detection of a phosphotyrosine antibody. We showed that the assay can specifically measure the activity of both Met and Abl kinase within one microchannel and has the potential to measure the activity of as many as five kinases within one microchannel. The assay also detected Met kinase inhibition from lysates of cancer cells grown in the Met kinase inhibitor PHA665752. [Figure not available: see fulltext.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intercellular Ca waves are propagation of Ca transients among cells that could be initiated by chemical stimulation. Current methods for analyzing intercellular Ca waves are difficult to realize localized chemical stimulations upon the target cell without interfering with adjacent contacting cells. In this paper, a simple and flexible microfluidic method was developed for investigating the intercellular communication of Ca signals. A cross-patterned microfluidic chip was designed and fabricated with polydimethylsiloxane as the structural material. Localized chemical stimulation was achieved by a new strategy based on hydrodynamic gating technique. Clusters of target cells were seeded at the location within 300 μm downstream of the intersection of the cross-shaped microchannel. Confined lateral molecular diffusion largely minimized the interference from diffusion-induced stimulation of adjacent cells. Localized stimulation of the target cell with adenosine 5′-triphosphate successfully induced the propagation of intercellular Ca waves among a population of adjacent contacting cells. Further inhibition studies verified that the propagation of calcium signals among NIH-3 T3 cells was dependent on direct cytosolic transfer via gap junctions. The developed microfluidic method provides a versatile platform for investigating the dynamics of intercellular communications. [Figure not available: see fulltext.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In microchip-based capillary electrophoresis, the resolution and separation efficiency of small peptides and amino acids can be noticeably improved by adding a low molecular weight (30,000) soluble polymer additive, polyvinypyrrolidone in the separation medium. Several separation conditions such as injection time and electrophoretic buffer have been investigated and optimized. Using an electro-stacking scheme, the resolution and separation efficiency of small peptides and amino acids can be enhanced significantly. Under the optimal conditions, the separation of fluorescein isothiocyanate Isomer I-labeled small peptides and amino acids was successfully achieved within 100 s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]