Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Suction
Inlet
C
Valve
a
A
Worm
F
E
B
D
Wash
Circulator
Suction
Waste/circulator
c
Worm
Valves
b
Valve cross-section
Wash
Suction
Flow
Control
Glass
Suction
Touch
neurons
Open (1)
Closed (0)
Waste
Collection
500 µm
10 µm
FIGURE 5.61
High-throughput.screening.of.
C. elegans
.with.a.microluidic.chip..(From.Christopher.
B..Rohde,.Fei.Zeng,.Ricardo.Gonzalez-Rubio,.Matthew.Angel,.and.Mehmet.Fatih.Yanik,.“Microluidic.
system.for.on-chip.high-throughput.whole-animal.sorting.and.screening.at.subcellular.resolution,”.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.
.104,.13891-13895,.2007..Copyright.(2007).National.Academy.of.
Sciences,.U..S..A..Figure.contributed.by.Fatih.Yanik.)
to exert forces on the worms, as well as to switch luids. Yanik's laboratory has demonstrated an
impressive worm-screening device (
Figure 5.61
) that is capable of isolating, immobilizing, imag-
ing, performing femtosecond laser microsurgery, and sorting worms into multiwell plates—all
within a fraction of a second per worm, an improvement of several orders of magnitude over pre-
vious manual procedures. A newer version of the device can manipulate zebraish embryos. hese
systems have a great potential and are already being explored for drug screening applications.
5.12 Summary
he ability to handle and analyze single live entities (ranging from cells, embryos, to worms)
at high throughput in small luid volumes is revolutionizing the ields of molecular biology,
biochemistry, and cell biology because it is providing a more quantitative description of cellu-
lar heterogeneity—which is crucial in understanding both physiological and pathophysiological
phenomena such as diferentiation, migration, reproduction, and cancer, among many others.
In the same token, this ability is greatly beneitting many related eforts in biotechnology, such
as in the development of cell analysis chips for PCR, patch clamp electrophysiology, and others.
Further Reading
Chen P., X. Feng, W. Du, and B. Liu. “Microluidic chips for cell sorting,”
Frontiers in Bioscience
13
, 2464-
2483 (2008).
Chung, T. D. and H. C. Kim. “Recent advances in miniaturized microluidic low cytometry for clinical use,”
Electrophoresis
28
, 4511-4520 (2007).
