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Tuneable Cell-Laden Double-Emulsion Droplets for Enhanced Signal Detection
Siyuan Zhuang1, Hangrui Liu2, David W Inglis1
1School of Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.
Analytical Chemistry
|January 12, 2023
Summary
Water-in-oil-in-water droplets offer stable, biocompatible platforms for single-cell assays. Osmotic manipulation of droplet core size enhances biosignals and promotes cell growth for biochemical screening.
Area of Science:
- Biochemistry
- Biotechnology
- Cell Biology
Background:
- Water-in-oil-in-water (w/o/w) double-emulsion (DE) droplets are stable and biocompatible for single-cell assays.
- The oil shell acts as a semipermeable membrane, controlling molecular transport and enabling core volume manipulation via osmosis.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the use of osmotic manipulation to alter the core size of DEs for enhanced cellular assays.
- To demonstrate the application of DE core size control for improving biosignal detection and cell growth screening.
Main Methods:
- Encapsulating Bgl3 enzyme-secreting yeast with a fluorescent substrate in DEs.
- Encapsulating single GFP-tagged yeast cells in DEs.
- Inducing DE core shrinkage or swelling by transferring droplets to hypertonic or hypotonic solutions.
Main Results:
- Shrinking DE cores concentrated biomarkers, enhancing fluorescence-based biosignals from yeast enzyme activity.
- Swelling DE cores promoted the growth of encapsulated yeast cells, leading to increased intracellular green-fluorescent protein production.
Conclusions:
- Osmotic manipulation of DE core size provides a novel method to enhance biosignal detection in cellular assays.
- This technique offers new tools for droplet-based biochemistry, improving applications in cell screening and analysis.
