Photonics Engineering Group, Universidad de Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain.
CIBER de Bioingeniera, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain.
Biosensors (Basel). 2022 Nov 16;12(11):1024. doi: 10.3390/bios12111024.
Phytoplankton is a crucial component for the correct functioning of different ecosystems, climate regulation and carbon reduction. Being at least a quarter of the biomass of the world's vegetation, they produce approximately 50% of atmospheric O2 and remove nearly a third of the anthropogenic carbon released into the atmosphere through photosynthesis. In addition, they support directly or indirectly all the animals of the ocean and freshwater ecosystems, being the base of the food web. The importance of their measurement and identification has increased in the last years, becoming an essential consideration for marine management. The gold standard process used to identify and quantify phytoplankton is manual sample collection and microscopy-based identification, which is a tedious and time-consuming task and requires highly trained professionals. Microfluidic Lab-on-a-Chip technology represents a potential technical solution for environmental monitoring, for example, in situ quantifying toxic phytoplankton. Its main advantages are miniaturisation, portability, reduced reagent/sample consumption and cost reduction. In particular, photonic microfluidic chips that rely on optical sensing have emerged as powerful tools that can be used to identify and analyse phytoplankton with high specificity, sensitivity and throughput. In this review, we focus on recent advances in photonic microfluidic technologies for phytoplankton research. Different optical properties of phytoplankton, fabrication and sensing technologies will be reviewed. To conclude, current challenges and possible future directions will be discussed.
浮游植物是不同生态系统正常运转、气候调节和碳减排的关键组成部分。作为世界植被生物量的至少四分之一，浮游植物通过光合作用产生约 50%的大气氧气，并去除近三分之一通过光合作用释放到大气中的人为碳。此外，它们直接或间接支持海洋和淡水生态系统中的所有动物，是食物网的基础。近年来，对浮游植物进行测量和鉴定的重要性不断增加，成为海洋管理的重要考虑因素。用于识别和量化浮游植物的黄金标准流程是手动样本采集和基于显微镜的鉴定，这是一项繁琐且耗时的任务，需要高度训练有素的专业人员。微流控芯片实验室技术代表了环境监测的潜在技术解决方案，例如现场定量有毒浮游植物。其主要优点是微型化、便携性、减少试剂/样品消耗和降低成本。特别是，基于光学传感的光学生物芯片已成为强大的工具，可用于高特异性、灵敏度和高通量地识别和分析浮游植物。在本次综述中，我们重点介绍了用于浮游植物研究的光学生物芯片技术的最新进展。将回顾浮游植物的不同光学特性、制造和传感技术。最后，将讨论当前的挑战和可能的未来方向。
