Hu Beiyu, Xu Peng, Ma Liang, Chen Dongwei, Wang Jian, Dai Xin, Huang Li, Du Wenbin
State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101 China.
College of Life Sciences, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049 China.
Mar Life Sci Technol. 2021 Jan 19;3(2):169-188. doi: 10.1007/s42995-020-00082-8. eCollection 2021 May.
Microbes thrive and, in turn, influence the earth's environment, but most are poorly understood because of our limited capacity to reveal their natural diversity and function. Developing novel tools and effective strategies are critical to ease this dilemma and will help to understand their roles in ecology and human health. Recently, droplet microfluidics is emerging as a promising technology for microbial studies with value in microbial cultivating, screening, and sequencing. This review aims to provide an overview of droplet microfluidics techniques for microbial research. First, some critical points or steps in the microfluidic system are introduced, such as droplet stabilization, manipulation, and detection. We then highlight the recent progress of droplet-based methods for microbiological applications, from high-throughput single-cell cultivation, screening to the targeted or whole-genome sequencing of single cells.
微生物大量繁殖,进而影响地球环境,但由于我们揭示其天然多样性和功能的能力有限,大多数微生物仍未被充分了解。开发新工具和有效策略对于缓解这一困境至关重要,将有助于了解它们在生态和人类健康中的作用。最近,微滴微流控技术正在成为一种有前途的微生物研究技术,在微生物培养、筛选和测序方面具有价值。本综述旨在概述用于微生物研究的微滴微流控技术。首先,介绍了微流控系统中的一些关键点或步骤,如微滴稳定、操控和检测。然后,我们重点介绍了基于微滴的微生物学应用方法的最新进展,从高通量单细胞培养、筛选到单细胞的靶向或全基因组测序。