Aynur Abdulla, Nokuzola Maboyi and Xianting Ding* Pages 8433 - 8450 ( 18 )
<p>Background: Cell heterogeneity exists among different tissues, even in the same type of cells. Cell heterogeneity leads to a difference in cell size, functions, biological activity, and for cancer cells it causes different drug responses and resistance. Meanwhile, microfluidics is a promising tool for single-cell research to reveal cell heterogeneity. </P><P> Methods: Through literature research conducted over the past ten years on microfluidics, we summarize and introduce the application of microfluidics in single-cell separation and manipulation, featuring techniques, such as acoustic manipulation, optical manipulation, single-cell trapping, and patterning, as well as single-cell omics including singlecell genomics, single-cell transcriptomics, single-cell proteome, single-cell metabolome, and drug development. </P><P> Results: Microfluidics is a flexible, precise tool, and it is easy to integrate with different functions. Firstly, it can be used as an important tool to separate rare but important cells according to the cell`s biological or physical properties. Secondly, microfluidics can provide the possibility of single-cell omics. Thirdly, microfluidics can be used in drug development, specifically in drug delivery and drug combination. Meanwhile, droplet microfluidics has gradually become the most powerful tool to encapsulate single-cells with other reagents for DNA, RNA, or protein analysis. </P><P> Conclusion: Microfluidics is a robust platform technology that is able to accomplish rare cell separation, efficient single-cell omics analysis and provide a platform for drug development and drug delivery.</p>
Microfluidics, single-cell manipulation, single-cell omics, drug development, protein analysis, cell separation.
State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Institute for Personalized Medicine, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Institute for Personalized Medicine, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes and Related Genes, Institute for Personalized Medicine, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030