Evaluation of Analyte Transfer between Microfluidic Droplets by Mass Spectrometry.

Droplet microfluidics enables high-throughput experimentation and screening by encapsulating chemical and biochemical samples in aqueous droplets segmented by an immiscible fluid. In such experiments, it is critical that each droplet remains chemically distinct. A common approach is to use fluorinated oils with surfactants to stabilize droplets.

High-throughput screening by droplet microfluidics: perspective into key challenges and future prospects.

In two decades of development, impressive strides have been made for automating basic laboratory operations in droplet-based microfluidics, allowing the emergence of a new form of high-throughput screening and experimentation in nanoliter to femtoliter volumes. Despite advancements in droplet storage, manipulation, and analysis, the field has not yet been widely adapted for many high-throughput screening (HTS) applications. Broad adoption and commercial development of these techniques require robust implementation of strategies for the stable storage, chemical containment, generation of libraries, sample tracking, and chemical analysis of these small samples.

Mass Activated Droplet Sorting (MADS) Enables High-Throughput Screening of Enzymatic Reactions at Nanoliter Scale.

Microfluidic droplet sorting enables the high-throughput screening and selection of water-in-oil microreactors at speeds and volumes unparalleled by traditional well-plate approaches. Most such systems sort using fluorescent reporters on modified substrates or reactions that are rarely industrially relevant. We describe a microfluidic system for high-throughput sorting of nanoliter droplets based on direct detection using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS).

Isolation of PCR quality microbial community DNA from heavily contaminated environments.

Asphalts, biochemically degraded oil, contain persistent, water-soluble compounds that pose a significant challenge to the isolation of PCR quality DNA. The adaptation of existing DNA purification protocols and commercial kits proved unsuccessful at overcoming this hurdle. Treatment of aqueous asphalt extracts with a polyamide resin afforded genomic microbial DNA templates that could readily be amplified by PCR.