Department of Chemistry and Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, United States.
School of Public Health, Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226019, P. R. China.
Anal Chem. 2021 Aug 10;93(31):10750-10755. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.1c01879. Epub 2021 Jul 28.
Single-cell manipulation, sorting, and dispensing into multiwell plates is useful for single-cell multiomics studies. Here, we develop a single-cell dispenser inspired by electrohydrodynamic jet printing that achieves accurate droplet generation and single-cell sorting and dispensing using fused silica capillary tubing as both the optical detection window and nozzle for droplet dispensing. Parameters that affect droplet dispensing performance-capillary inner and outer diameter, flow rate, applied voltage, and solution properties-were optimized systematically with COMSOL simulations and experimentation. Small (5-10 nL) droplets were obtained by using 100-μm inner diameter and 160-μm outer diameter capillary tubing and allowed efficient encapsulation and dispensing of single cells. We demonstrate an application of this easy-to-assemble single-cell dispenser by sorting and dispensing cells into multiwell plates for single-cell PCR analysis.
单细胞操纵、分选和分配到多孔板对于单细胞多组学研究非常有用。在这里，我们开发了一种受电动力学射流打印启发的单细胞分配器，该分配器使用熔融石英毛细管作为光学检测窗口和液滴分配喷嘴，实现了精确的液滴生成和单细胞分选和分配。使用 COMSOL 模拟和实验系统地优化了影响液滴分配性能的参数-毛细管内径和外径、流速、施加电压和溶液性质。通过使用 100-μm 内径和 160-μm 外径的毛细管获得了小（5-10 nL）液滴，并允许高效地封装和分配单细胞。我们通过将细胞分选和分配到多孔板中用于单细胞 PCR 分析来展示这种易于组装的单细胞分配器的应用。
