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A new microfluidics-based droplet dispenser for ICPMS.

ABSTRACT: In this work, a novel droplet microfluidic sample introduction system for inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) is proposed and characterized. The cheap and disposable microfluidic chip generates droplets of an aqueous sample in a stream of perfluorohexane (PFH), which is also used to eject them as a liquid jet. The aqueous droplets remain intact during the ejection and can be transported into the ICP with >50% efficiency. The transport is realized via a custom-built system, which includes a membrane desolvator necessary for the PFH vapor removal. The introduction system presented here can generate highly monodisperse droplets in the size range of 40-60 ?m at frequencies from 90 to 300 Hz. These droplets produced very stable signals with a relative standard deviation (RSD) comparable to the one achieved with a commercial droplet dispenser. Using the current system, samples with a total volume of <1 ?L can be analyzed. Moreover, the capabilities of the setup for introduction and quantitative elemental analysis of single cells were described using a test system of bovine red blood cells. In the future, other modules of the modern microfludics can be integrated in the chip, such as on-chip sample pretreatment or parallel introduction of different samples.

SUBMITTER: Verboket PE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4063494 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A new microfluidics-based droplet dispenser for ICPMS.

Verboket Pascal E PE Borovinskaya Olga O Meyer Nicole N Günther Detlef D Dittrich Petra S PS

Analytical chemistry 20140531 12

In this work, a novel droplet microfluidic sample introduction system for inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) is proposed and characterized. The cheap and disposable microfluidic chip generates droplets of an aqueous sample in a stream of perfluorohexane (PFH), which is also used to eject them as a liquid jet. The aqueous droplets remain intact during the ejection and can be transported into the ICP with >50% efficiency. The transport is realized via a custom-built system, which ...[more]

PMID: 24805360

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Project description:BackgroundDespite the importance of the mucosal interface between microbiota and the host in gut homeostasis, little is known about the mechanisms of bacterial gut colonization, involving foraging for glycans produced by epithelial cells. The slow pace of progress toward understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms is largely due to the lack of efficient discovery tools, especially those targeting the uncultured fraction of the microbiota.ResultsHere, we introduce an ultra-high-throughput metagenomic approach based on droplet microfluidics, to screen fosmid libraries. Thousands of bacterial genomes can be covered in 1 h of work, with less than ten micrograms of substrate. Applied to the screening of the mucosal microbiota for β-N-acetylgalactosaminidase activity, this approach allowed the identification of pathways involved in the degradation of human gangliosides and milk oligosaccharides, the structural homologs of intestinal mucin glycans. These pathways, whose prevalence is associated with inflammatory bowel diseases, could be the result of horizontal gene transfers with Bacteroides species. Such pathways represent novel targets to study the microbiota-host interactions in the context of inflammatory bowel diseases, in which the integrity of the mucosal barrier is impaired.ConclusionBy compartmentalizing experiments inside microfluidic droplets, this method speeds up and miniaturizes by several orders of magnitude the screening process compared to conventional approaches, to capture entire metabolic pathways from metagenomic libraries. The method is compatible with all types of (meta)genomic libraries, and employs a commercially available flow cytometer instead of a custom-made sorting system to detect intracellular or extracellular enzyme activities. This versatile and generic workflow will accelerate experimental exploration campaigns in functional metagenomics and holobiomics studies, to further decipher host-microbiota relationships. Video Abstract.

Dataset Information

A new microfluidics-based droplet dispenser for ICPMS.

Publications

A new microfluidics-based droplet dispenser for ICPMS.

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