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  • Double Emulsion Picoreactors for High-Throughput Single-Cell Encapsulation and Phenotyping via FACS. Analytical chemistry Brower, K. K., Khariton, M., Suzuki, P. H., Still, C. 2., Kim, G., Calhoun, S. G., Qi, L. S., Wang, B., Fordyce, P. M. 2020

    Abstract

    In the past five years, droplet microfluidic techniques have unlocked new opportunities for the high-throughput genome-wide analysis of single cells, transforming our understanding of cellular diversity and function. However, the field lacks an accessible method to screen and sort droplets based on cellular phenotype upstream of genetic analysis, particularly for large and complex cells. To meet this need, we developed Dropception, a robust, easy-to-use workflow for precise single-cell encapsulation into picoliter-scale double emulsion droplets compatible with high-throughput screening via fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). We demonstrate the capabilities of this method by encapsulating five standardized mammalian cell lines of varying sizes and morphologies as well as a heterogeneous cell mixture of a whole dissociated flatworm (5-25 mum in diameter) within highly monodisperse double emulsions (35 mum in diameter). We optimize for preferential encapsulation of single cells with extremely low multiple-cell loading events (<2% of cell-containing droplets), thereby allowing direct linkage of cellular phenotype to genotype. Across all cell lines, cell loading efficiency approaches the theoretical limit with no observable bias by cell size. FACS measurements reveal the ability to discriminate empty droplets from those containing cells with good agreement to single-cell occupancies quantified via microscopy, establishing robust droplet screening at single-cell resolution. High-throughput FACS screening of cellular picoreactors has the potential to shift the landscape of single-cell droplet microfluidics by expanding the repertoire of current nucleic acid droplet assays to include functional phenotyping.

    View details for DOI 10.1021/acs.analchem.0c02499

    View details for PubMedID 32900183

  • Double emulsion flow cytometry with high-throughput single droplet isolation and nucleic acid recovery. Lab on a chip Brower, K. K., Carswell-Crumpton, C., Klemm, S., Cruz, B., Kim, G., Calhoun, S. G., Nichols, L., Fordyce, P. M. 2020

    Abstract

    Droplet microfluidics has made large impacts in diverse areas such as enzyme evolution, chemical product screening, polymer engineering, and single-cell analysis. However, while droplet reactions have become increasingly sophisticated, phenotyping droplets by a fluorescent signal and sorting them to isolate individual variants-of-interest at high-throughput remains challenging. Here, we present sdDE-FACS (s[combining low line]ingle d[combining low line]roplet D[combining low line]ouble E[combining low line]mulsion-FACS), a new method that uses a standard flow cytometer to phenotype, select, and isolate individual double emulsion droplets of interest. Using a 130 mum nozzle at high sort frequency (12-14 kHz), we demonstrate detection of droplet fluorescence signals with a dynamic range spanning 5 orders of magnitude and robust post-sort recovery of intact double emulsion (DE) droplets using 2 commercially-available FACS instruments. We report the first demonstration of single double emulsion droplet isolation with post-sort recovery efficiencies >70%, equivalent to the capabilities of single-cell FACS. Finally, we establish complete downstream recovery of nucleic acids from single, sorted double emulsion droplets via qPCR with little to no cross-contamination. sdDE-FACS marries the full power of droplet microfluidics with flow cytometry to enable a variety of new droplet assays, including rare variant isolation and multiparameter single-cell analysis.

    View details for DOI 10.1039/d0lc00261e

    View details for PubMedID 32417874