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Phenotyping and Selection of Cells Using Mass Spectrometry and a Microfluidic Droplet Printer | Analytical Chemistry pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
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Biotechnology is increasingly relying on high-throughput experiments in which large populations of cells are phenotyped and selected based on performance, e.g., for producing a desired product. Droplet microfluidics enables high-throughput screening, and as such, it lends itself ideally to such experiments, but reliance on a fluorescent readout is limiting. Herein, we report a system integrating droplet electrospray ionization–mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) with a microfluidic voltage-mediated droplet printer to enable online analysis and capture of cell-containing aqueous droplets, ultimately offering the possibility for label-free phenotyping and selection of cells. Escherichia coli (E. coli) cell-containing droplets (20 nL) are split into two volume fractions within a microfluidic splitter chip. One fraction is analyzed using a sheath-flow ESI source with MS, while the sibling fraction is printed onto an agar plate using a custom-built voltage-mediated microfluidic printer. Printed droplets can grow into single microbial colonies that map back to their respective droplet ESI-MS signal with 94–99% accuracy and without carryover. Nearly synchronous and stable system operation is shown for infusion rates in the range of 0.4–1.2 droplets/s, while the achieved droplet spacing and printing precision can enable reliable single-colony retrieval for further analyses or gene sequencing. The system is also shown for phenotyping and selection of an E. coli variant engineered to produce l-lysine among control cells. The method enables screening cell colonies for chemical composition and collecting them for further processing with potential application in synthetic biology and enzyme engineering among others.
pubs.acs.org
Phenotyping and Selection of Cells Using Mass Spectrometry and a Microfluidic Droplet Printer
Narayan Lab @ UMich