Mika Taras, Kalnins Martins, Spalvins Kriss
Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Riga Technical University, 12 - K1 Āzene street, Riga, LV-1048, Latvia.
Biol Methods Protoc. 2024 Jul 10;9(1):bpae049. doi: 10.1093/biomethods/bpae049. eCollection 2024.
Microorganisms are widely used for the industrial production of various valuable products, such as pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, biofuels, enzymes, amino acids, vaccines, etc. Research is constantly carried out to improve their properties, mainly to increase their productivity and efficiency and reduce the cost of the processes. The selection of microorganisms with improved qualities takes a lot of time and resources (both human and material); therefore, this process itself needs optimization. In the last two decades, microfluidics technology appeared in bioengineering, which allows for manipulating small particles (from tens of microns to nanometre scale) in the flow of liquid in microchannels. The technology is based on small-volume objects (microdroplets from nano to femtolitres), which are manipulated using a microchip. The chip is made of an optically transparent inert to liquid medium material and contains a series of channels of small size (<1 mm) of certain geometry. Based on the physical and chemical properties of microparticles (like size, weight, optical density, dielectric constant, etc.), they are separated using microsensors. The idea of accelerated selection of microorganisms is the application of microfluidic technologies to separate mutants with improved qualities after mutagenesis. This article discusses the possible application and practical implementation of microfluidic separation of mutants, including yeasts like and after chemical mutagenesis will be discussed.
微生物被广泛用于各种有价值产品的工业生产，如药品、食品和饮料、生物燃料、酶、氨基酸、疫苗等。人们不断进行研究以改善它们的特性，主要是提高其生产力和效率并降低生产过程的成本。选择具有改良品质的微生物需要耗费大量时间和资源（人力和物力）；因此，这个过程本身需要优化。在过去二十年中，微流控技术出现在生物工程领域，它能够在微通道内的液体流中操控小颗粒（从几十微米到纳米尺度）。该技术基于小体积物体（从纳升到飞升的微滴），通过微芯片进行操控。芯片由对液体介质呈光学透明的惰性材料制成，包含一系列具有特定几何形状的小尺寸（<1毫米）通道。基于微粒的物理和化学性质（如大小、重量、光密度、介电常数等），利用微传感器对它们进行分离。加速微生物选择的理念是应用微流控技术在诱变后分离具有改良品质的突变体。本文将讨论微流控分离突变体的可能应用和实际实施，包括化学诱变后的酿酒酵母等酵母。
