High-throughput screening of microbial strains in large-scale microfluidic droplets

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology
• Microfluidics and Lab-on-a-Chip Technology
• Green Biomanufacturing

Background:

• Engineered microbial cells are crucial for green biomanufacturing, requiring genetic modification for specific product synthesis.
• Microfluidics offers precise control of fluids at the microscale, with droplet-based microfluidics (DMF) generating discrete droplets at high frequencies.
• Existing applications of DMF include various microbes and detection of diverse metabolites like polypeptides, enzymes, and lipids.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the significance of droplet-based microfluidics (DMF) in advancing green biomanufacturing.
• To showcase the capabilities of DMF in microbial engineering and metabolite detection.
• To position DMF as a key technology for high-throughput screening of engineered microbial strains.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing droplet-based microfluidics (DMF) for precise manipulation of fluids at the microscale.
• Applying DMF to engineer microbial chassis (bacteria, yeast, filamentous fungi).
• Employing DMF for the high-throughput detection of microbial metabolites (polypeptides, enzymes, lipids).

Main Results:

• Successful application of DMF across diverse microbial types including bacteria, yeast, and filamentous fungi.
• Realization of massive metabolite detection from engineered microbial strains.
• Demonstration of kHz frequency droplet generation for rapid processing.

Conclusions:

• Droplet microfluidics (DMF) is a powerful and emerging technology for green biomanufacturing.
• DMF enables efficient genetic modification and functional enhancement of microbial strains.
• The technology is poised to revolutionize high-throughput screening of engineered microbes for industrial applications.