Optimization of flow assisted entrapment of pollen grains in a microfluidic platform for tip growth analysis.

A biocompatible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) biomicrofluidic platform is designed, fabricated and tested to study protuberance growth of single plant cells in a micro-vitro environment. The design consists of an inlet to introduce the cell suspension into the chip, three outlets to conduct the medium or cells out of the chip, a main distribution chamber and eight microchannels connected to the main chamber to guide the growth of tip growing plant cells. The test cells used here were pollen grains which produce cylindrical protrusions called pollen tubes.

Quantification of cellular penetrative forces using lab-on-a-chip technology and finite element modeling.

Tip-growing cells have the unique property of invading living tissues and abiotic growth matrices. To do so, they exert significant penetrative forces. In plant and fungal cells, these forces are generated by the hydrostatic turgor pressure.

Quantification of the Young's modulus of the primary plant cell wall using Bending-Lab-On-Chip (BLOC).

Biomechanical and mathematical modeling of plant developmental processes requires quantitative information about the structural and mechanical properties of living cells, tissues and cellular components. A crucial mechanical property of plant cells is the mechanical stiffness or Young's modulus of its cell wall. Measuring this property in situ at single cell wall level is technically challenging.

TipChip: a modular, MEMS-based platform for experimentation and phenotyping of tip-growing cells.

Large-scale phenotyping of tip-growing cells such as pollen tubes has hitherto been limited to very crude parameters such as germination percentage and velocity of growth. To enable efficient and high-throughput execution of more sophisticated assays, an experimental platform, the TipChip, was developed based on microfluidic and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. The device allows positioning of pollen grains or fungal spores at the entrances of serially arranged microchannels equipped with microscopic experimental set-ups.

Sodium dodecyl sulfate-agarose gel electrophoresis for the detection and isolation of amyloid curli fibers.

Curli are amyloid-like fibers on the surface of some strains of Escherichia coli and Salmonella enteritidis. We tested the use of horizontal sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-agarose gel electrophoresis to detect, isolate, and quantitate curli. Cell extracts fractionated in SDS-agarose gels and stained with Coomassie blue exhibited a soluble fraction that entered the gel and an insoluble fraction that remained in the well.