[Application of microfluidics in cell transfection: a review]

Microfluidics deals with the manipulation of fluidics in the structure with dimensions of micrometers or nanometers. As an emerging field, microfluidics has numerous advantages, such as controllable fluid flow and reduced reagents consumption. Recently, microfluidic has been applied into the area of cell transfection, providing opportunities to investigate cell transfection process on microscale. This review summarizes recent technical development of cell transfection based on microfluidics, including transfeceted microarray, transfecetion established in miniaturization flowing space, microdrops, microinjection and microfluidic electroporation. The factors that affect the transfection efficiency and improvement approaches are also discussed.